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THE 

SPLENDID ADVANTAGES 

OF 

BEING A WOMAN. 

AND OTHEE ERRATIC ESSAYS. 



CHAKLES J. DUNPHIE. 



H No matter in the world is so proper to write with as wildfire."— Addison. 
" Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem."— Horace. 






NEW YORK: 

LOVELL, ADAM, WESSON & COMPANY. 

764 Broadway, 



2 



43^ 



to 



LAKE CHAMPLAIN PRESS, 
ROUSES POINT, N. Y. 




TO 

JOHN S. CLARKE. 

IN SINCERE THOUGH INADEQUATE TESTIMONY 

OF 

MY AFFECTION FOR HIM AS A FRIEND 

AND 

MY ADMIRATION FOR HIM AS AN ARTIST 

I INSCRIBE THIS VOLUME, 

WITH THE WARMEST FEELINGS OF REGARD AND A 

PLEASURE ALLOYED ONLY WITH REGRET 

THAT THE OFFERING IS NOT LESS UNWORTHY 

OF 

HIS ACCEPTANCE. 



TO THE READER. 



The following Essays having been originally published 
under a nom de plume, the Reader is courteously en- 
treated to attribute the egotism of which they may bear 
too frequent traces, not to the Author, but to the ideal 
personage whom he represented. 

It may not be inexpedient to state that though some 
of the Essays affect a thoughtful or critical tone, and 
are therefore meant to be read in a serious spirit, many 
more of them begin where Common Sense leaves off. In- 
credible as it may appear on perusal, it is not the less 
true that the articles of this latter, class were intended 
to be amusing • that they should have been so designed, 
seeing how they have eventuated, is, perhaps, the drollest 
thing about them. They were written upon the Hora- 
tian principle, dulce est desipere in loco ; and Addison's 
maxim, " No matter in the world is so proper to write 
with as wildfire," was adopted throughout, though 
probably in a sense, as with a result, hardly within the 
contemplation of that celebrated author. 

It now and then happened to the present writer that 
his pen ran away with him. He meekly suggests that 
on such occasions Messrs. Gillott, of Birmingham, who 
created the unmanageable implement, should be held 
responsible for its escapades. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE. 

The Splendid Advantages of being a Woman ..... I 

The Advantages of being Ugly 8 

The IncommunicabiKty of Sorrow 16 

The Dignity and Delight of Ignorance 22 

The Delights of Deception 29 

Sunshine and Shadow 37 

The Decay of the Picturesque .' . 43 

Proud Young Porters 51 

The Absurdity of Going out of Town . 59 

The Pleasure of Lying in Bed 64 

Fops and Foppery 71 

The Pleasures of Silence 79 

Vis Comica 87 

The Art of Walking 96 

The Misery of being Respectable 104 

A Wet Day at Llangollen in 

Town Trees and Country Trees 119 

"Cheek" . ." 127 

The Pleasures of being Mad 132 

Ramsgate on her Good Behavior . 140 

The Art of Talking 149 

Hard Weather Long Ago. In four parts . 160 

The Delight of Getting into the Country 201 

Castles in the Air 208 

The Miseries of Music 215 

The Witchery of Manner 223 

Whistling 229 

Saucy Doubts and Fears 236 

Tii 



Viii CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

An Island of Tranquil Delights. In two parts 241 

Weddings 257 

The Delight of Early Rising . 265 

The Reign of Rain . 271 

The London Row 279 

Post Yule-tide Meditations .288 

The Uses of Sympathy 297 

The Delights of Music ^ 305 

Cock-a-doodle-doo 313 

The Comfort of being Down in Your Luck 319 

The Thistles of Literature 325 

Things that have Gone Out 338 

Rinking * 346 

The Poetry of Sleep 353 



ERRATIC ESSAYS. 



THE SPLENDID ADVANTAGES OF BEING 
A WOMAN. 

TT has been said that lookers-on know more about a 
battle than do the soldiers engaged in the strife. 
With parity of reasoning, it may be argued that in very 
right of his manhood, a man is better qualified than a 
woman to pronounce an opinion upon the advantages 
specially appertaining to the female sex. Being a man, 
I deem myself ipso facto qualified to discourse authori- 
tatively upon the gain and glory of being a woman. 
Before doing so, however, I must say a word in explana- 
tion of my motive, lest, peradventure, it should be mis- 
understood by those of whose good report in my regard 
I would on no account be unmindful. Let it not be sup- 
posed that I am envious of the splendid privileges en- 
joyed by the ladies, or would abridge their priceless 
prerogatives. Perish the ignoble thought ! I would 
enlarge those privileges and multiply those prerogatives 
one hundred-fold, were it possible to do so. All I pro- 
pose is, to show how much more enviable than the lot 
of man is that of woman, and in one emphatic word, to 
prove that the next dearest blessing that can befall a 
human being, after not having been born at all, is to 
have been born a woman. 



2 THE SPLENDID ADVANTAGES 

The physical advantages of being a woman are many 
and various. The gift of Beauty, with all its concomi- 
tant delights, belongs to woman, and to her alone. There 
never was, and it may be safely predicted that there 
never will be, on earth any such creature as an ugly 
woman. Nobody ever heard of such a phenomenon. 
To be a woman is to be beautiful, and so far is she from 
diminishing in personal attraction, that we are every 
day assured upon the most disinterested authority that 
" loveliness is on the increase." It stands to reason that 
it must be so, for women are on the increase ; and wo- 
man and loveliness are convertible terms. How sweet- 
ly and how truly sings Otway ! — 

" Oh woman ! lovely woman ! Nature made thee 
To temper man ; we had been brutes without you. 
Angels are painted fair, to look like you ; 
There's in you all that we believe of heaven,— 
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth, 
Eternal joy, and everlasting love." 

These are my sentiments, if not exactly my words. I 
have travelled in many lands and mingled with all 
classes, but I have never yet seen either an ugly woman 
or a handsome man. One man may possibly be a shade 
— just a shade — less hideous than another, but no man 
makes a nearer approach to beauty than that. All men 
are of necessity ill-shaped and ill-favored, whereas all 
women are, by a law no less inflexible, symmetrical in 
form and fair to look upon. Some of them, doubtless, 
are more symmetrical and fairer than others, but all are 
symmetrical and fair. When a sword is put into a man's 
hand, and he is told to go forth and fly at some other 
man's throat, for the dear sake of " England, home, and 
beauty" no one is such a fool as to imagine that he is 



OF BEING A WOMAN. 3 

thereby enjoined to do battle for his own miserable sex. 
Nothing of the kind. England is a lady. Look at her 
figure on our coins. Who ever saw Britannia in trow- 
sers and a chimney-pot ? " Home," there is none 
without a woman. "Beauty" merely means the sex 
female. Not alone are women beautiful themselves, but 
they have an instinctive love of the beautiful wherever it 
is to be found. " Women," observes a lady, " have a 
much nicer sense of the beautiful than men. They are 
by far the safer umpires in the matters of propriety and 
grace. A mere school-girl will be thinking and writing 
about the beauty of birds and flowers, while her brother 
is robbing the nests and destroying the roses." Then, 
again, consider the physical bother and irritation you 
escape by the simple expedient of being a woman. A 
man either wears a beard, in which ease he must brush, 
comb, and oil it, at a great cost of time and trouble 
daily, or he wears none, in which event he has to submit 
himself once every four-and-twenty hours to the horri- 
ble operation of shaving. No woman has to suffer 
either of these vile alternatives. A lady may sip soup 
with a dainty grace, whereas a gentleman, do what he 
may, is compromised in the most distressing manner 
by his mustache. Furthermore, Nature, who has given 
to woman the prize of Beauty, and withheld from her 
the penalty of a beard, has also bestowed upon her 
length of days. It is notorious that, all the world over, 
women as a sex live longer than men similarly classed. 
Extreme old age is rarely, very rarely attained by men, 
whereas you can hardly take up a newspaper without 
finding mention of some one lady who is well on for 
her hundredth year, or some other lady who has just died 
at that mature age. Moreover, in this country, at all 



4 THE SPLENDID ADVANTAGES 

events, women are numerically immensely in excess of 
men, and so have all the power and prestige of major- 
ity. So that, view it as we may, whether with reference 
to beauty of feature, grace of form, length of life, or 
numerical ascendancy, the advantage is still with wo- 
men. 

But if the physical advantages of being a woman are 
great, who can estimate the social at their due value ? 
Pas aux dames I make way for the ladies ! is the law of 
civilized society, from the equator to either pole. " Will 
any gentleman oblige a lady ? " asks the omnibus-con- 
ductor, in his blandest of tones ; and no sooner said 
than done. Out rushes a gentleman in soaking rain 
and cutting blasts, to oblige a lady (that is to say, to 
save her the expense of a sixpenny cab), whom he had 
never seen before, and will probably never see again. 
Who ever yet heard of a lady getting out to oblige a 
gentleman ? The notion is monstrous. The man who 
would suggest such a thing would deserve to he hanged 
on the nearest lamp-post. Every man who has received 
a salute from a lady takes off his hat to her. Who takes 
off his hat to a man ? Men glare or scowl, the one at 
the other, or at best exchange contemptuous nods, but 
as for lifting their hats — unless indeed one of the par- 
ties should happen to be the Speaker of the House of 
Commons — such a thing is unheard of among equals. 
If a man were to take off his hat to me, I should feel 
disposed to punch his head, concluding that he meant 
mockery, as naughty street-boys sometimes "take a 
sight " at one another. But men were only made to do 
homage to women. Everywhere and always the same 
golden rule obtains. For whom are the tit-bits reserved 
at every feast ? — who gets sugar and spice and all things 



OF BEING A WOMAN. 5 

nice? — who is served first, and has the best seat at 
breakfast, dinner and supper? — who polishes off the 
Neapolitan ices at opera and play ? — woman, woman 
lovely woman ! Who pays for them ? Man, tfre wretch ! 
Who stands by patiently while they are being con- 
sumed ? — man, hollow-eyed, famine-stricken man ? Who 
comes in for all the kisses of fortune ? — woman ; and 
who for all her kicks ? Man, man, ugly man, the most 
unfortunate of created beings ! " The lapse of ages 
changes all things, — time, language, the earth, the 
bounds of the sea, the stars of the sky, and everything 
about, around and underneath man, except man him- 
self, who has always been and always will be an unlucky 
rascal." So spake Lord Byron, and words of truer 
wisdom were never spoken. But as for Woman, she is 
the empress of creation, the world is her garden, and 
man her menial, — nothing more. Falling an easy vic- 
tim to her enchantments, man indulges in a little inno- 
cent flirtation. He loves and he rides away. Woman 
brings her action for breach of promise, and gets swinge- 
ing damages. Woman loves and she rides away. Man 
brings his action for breach of promise. He is hooted 
out of court. Woman is privileged to dress in the cost- 
liest and most fanciful fashion. Silks, satins, velvets, 
the most curious fabrics of the loom, feathers, furs, 
laces, whatsoever things are beauteous, whatsoever 
things are rare and splendid, are at her disposal, to 
equip herself out withal, and make her irresistible. Even 
the innocent little dicky-birds are impressed into her 
service, and surrender their lives that woman's hat may 
look the sprucer for their plumage. In her cause the 
robin red-breast lays down his melodious life; and 
justly so, since a bird in her hat is worth two in the 



6 THE SPLENDID ADVANTAGES. 

bush. The little bow-wow dogs give up their brass col- 
lars that they may shine upon her snowy neck. She 
goeth forth conquering and to conquer. Man — poor 
devil ! — is restricted to the same cut of clothes from 
generation to generation. What with his odious chim- 
ney-pot hat, and his horrid trowsers, and his never- 
changing coats — always made of the same material, the 
wool of the congenial sheep — he is a mere collection of 
cylinders, and his garments seem to be contrived for the 
express purpose of enhancing his native ugliness and 
making him still more ridiculous. In all particulars, 
both ceremonial and sumptuary, he therefore is doomed 
to ignominious inferiority, and must not dare to emulate 
the splendor of the angelic sex. 

So much for what may be termed " externals," but 
in affairs of graver import, splendid, indeed, are the 
advantages of being a woman. Who toils ? who suffers 
all hardships ? who endures all inclemencies of weather ? 
who bears the burden and the heat of the day ? who the 
rigor and the darkness of the night? Man, — the un- 
lucky rascal, man. Who is the last to leave the blazing 
house ? Man. Who stands upon the bridge of the 
sinking ship and goes down with her into the abysses 
of the ocean, never, never to be seen again ? Man ; 
still man. And when war breaks forth, who fights ? 
who bleeds ? who dies ? Who should it be, but man, 
the unluckiest of rascals? Meanwhile, woman, bless 
\ her sweet heart ! remains at her cozy fireside, safe, 
warm, and comfortable. Thus let it ever be, for our 
arms should be her protection, and her arms our reward. 
Only, I want to show what a grand and blessed thing it 
is to be a woman, and what cause for gratitude that 
human being has who is thus sublimely privileged. Nor 



OF BEING A WOMAN. y 

is it in times of danger alone that she has the advan- 
tage. Whether in war or peace, she has still, as the 
homely phrase goes, "the longer end of the stick.' , 
What can be more irksome, duller, more monotonous 
than the life of a man ? What gayer, brighter, more 
delightful than that of a woman ? A man goes out in 
the morning, and it may be for six, eight, or ten hours 
afterwards, he is immured within four walls. It signifies 
nothing by what name you may dignify his prison, 
whether as study, studio, shop, office, law-chamber, 
library or counting-house, it is still to all intents and 
purposes a prison, and his jailer's name is "Business." 
There he toils and moils all day long, in inexorable cap- 
tivity. But no sooner has he left his house after break- 
fast than his wife is at liberty to wander where she 
pleases. She gives with a sweet smile an order or two 
to her servants, and for the rest of the day she is queen 
of herself, that heritage of joy. She sallies forth on her 
butterfly career to see the shops, to spend her husband's 
money, to run about upon castors like a table, to visit 
her friends, and " each change of many-colored life " to 
view. Moreover, she may let her hair grow to the 
length of her waist. We must have ours' cut once a 
month. Oh ! who would not be a woman. 

Yet another privilege belongs to the sex, and to them 
alone, the priceless privilege of Weeping. When any 
trial, real or imaginary, arises to warp their temper, they 
can have " a good cry," and all is over. This celestial 
solace is denied to man. His heart may be bleeding 
at every pore. There let it ! He must not dare to shed 
a tear. If he do, the finger of derision is pointed at 
him, and he never more may call himself a man. 
" Women," says Saville, " have more strength in their 



8 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

looks than we have in our laws, and more power by 
their tears than we have by our arguments." Let the 
tears but rise to woman's eye, and all is over with " that 
other animal, man." Be his cause however righteous, 
he has nothing for it but to lick the dust : — 

" Oh ! too convincing, — dangerously dear, 
In woman's eye the unanswerable tear I 
That weapon of her weakness, she can wield 
To save, subdue, — at once her spear and shield. 
Avoid it ! — Virtue ebbs, and wisdom errs, 
Too fondly gazing on that grief of hers I 
What lost a world, and made a hero fly ? 
The timid tear in Cleopatra's eye. 

These are but a few of the splendid advantages of 
being a Woman, The best of everything; their own 
way ; and the last word in every argument, such are the 
rights of Woman. For my own poor part, I have never 
ceased to regret that I am not one, and the mother of 
nine children, to boot. 



THE ADVANTAGES OE BEING UGLY. 

TT would largely conduce to the greater comfort of the 
A world that men and women should be brought to 
understand how preferable is Ugliness to Beauty. The 
practical and universal recognition of this great fact 
would destroy self-conceit and its concomitant evils, and 
disenchant us all of a thousand illusions injurious to our 
peace of mind. It is quite time that Beauty should be 
brought to task for her manifold offences against the 



THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING UGLY, 9 

welfare of society, and that the claims of Ugliness on 
the admiration of mankind should be fearlessly set 
forth. Trace back the history of that unfortunate being 
Man, from the earliest period to the present hour, and 
you shall find that in all ages and in all climes he has 
been tormented and be-fooled by Beauty. In that most 
perfidious of sirens he has invariably found a pitiless 
despot, a remorseless enslaver. For Beauty men have 
again and again disregarded the bonds of kindred, vio- 
lated the fondest obligations of friendship, and set at 
naught all laws divine and human. At her bidding they 
have committed heinous crimes, cherished deadly ani- 
mosities, and plunged into the most unrighteous wars. 
In fact, as all geometry may be reduced to a point, even 
so may all the miseries of life be reduced to Beauty as 
to their first principle. "What a delightful life we 
should all have had in the garden of Eden if we had 
never been born ! " exclaimed the O'Firmigan the other 
day in a transport of philosophy and punch. And so 
we should. When Adam was a bachelor he had a pleas- 
ant time enough of it in the asphodel bowers of Para- 
dise, till in an evil hour he became enamored of Beauty 
in the form of Eve. So he laid him down to rest — poor 
wight-«-and, as has been said all too truly, his first sleep 
became his last repose. Solomon, reputedly the wisest 
man the world ever saw, grew infatuate of Beauty, and 
all his wisdom was of no avail against her enchant- 
ments. We know full well how Samson fared at the 
hands of Dalilah. Troy, the very site whereof has 
utterly disappeared, might now be a flourishing city, and 
Greeks and Trojans might be living to this hour in per- 
fect amity had it not been that they all went mad for 
love of a fair-haired girl named Helen. Orlando lost 



I o ERR A TIC ESS A KS*. 

his senses for the sake of Angelica ; Antony for Cleo- 
patra. Herod, the Tetrarch, went clean out of his wits 
for a pretty dancing-girl, and the King of Bavaria did 
the like for Lola Montes. King Richard might possibly 
have been a prosperous gentleman, though not as 
straight as a poplar, but that he, too, went daft about 
Beauty, as he pathetically assured the object of his 
idolatry — 

" Your beauty was the cause of that effect, 
Your beauty that did haunt me in my sleep." 

The ancient philosophers were at great pains to warn 
their disciples against the cozening devices of Beauty. 
Aristotle declares that a graceful person is a more 
powerful recommendation than the best letter that can 
be written in your favor ; so that it comes to this, that 
an elegant form supersedes the necessity for a good 
character. Plato desires the possessor of Beauty to 
consider it as a mere gift of nature and not any perfec- 
tion of his own ; but, inasmuch as no handsome human 
being of either sex ever so accounted it, Plato might as 
well have kept his breath to cool his porridge. Socrates 
calls Beauty " a short-lived tyranny," which it unques- 
tionably is : and Theophrastus denominates it " a silent 
fraud," because it imposes on us without the help of 
language. " Beauty," says Lord Bacon, " is as summer 
fruits which are easy to corrupt and cannot last ; and 
for the most part it makes a dissolute youth and an age 
a little out of countenance." To understand the utter 
worthlessness of Beauty we must bear in mind first its 
capricious and fantastic organ, and secondly the ridic- 
ulous brevity of its existence. " Every eye makes its 
own beauty," says the proverb. This being so it follows 



THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING UGLY. T1 

that Beauty is after all no positive entity, no gift or 
quality capable of demonstration, and easy of reference 
to the " sensible and tried avouch " of universal vision, 
but the merest matter of fantasy depending upon the 
ardor of a man's imagination or possibly the condition 
of his digestion. So it, doubtless, is in the majority of 
cases ; but even in those instances where it may be ad- 
mitted to be patent to all beholders, what is its value ? 
To say that Beauty is here to-day and gone to-morrow, 
were to exaggerate the term of its duration. It is here 
to-day and gone to-day — " the perfume and suppliance 
of a minute.'"' * 

" Fair is the lily, fair 

The rose, of flowers the eye ; 
Both wither in the air — 

Their beauteous colors die." 

So it fares with Beauty ever — of all creatures under 
the sun assuredly the most fallacious and evanescent. 
And the mischief of it is that, not content with being a 
sham herself, Beauty has a fatal tendency to make a 
sham of everybody who has anything to do with her. 
What women have we not met who would be delightful, 
but that they are beautiful and know it ! What men have 
we not had the misfortune at times to converse with 
who have been transformed from good fellows into intol- 
erable coxcombs by reason of the adulation which, in 
consideration of their beauty, they receive at the hands 
of women ! Of all the despicable counterfeits who 
ever libelled humanity the most despicable is assuredly 
a ladies' man. Belonging to neither sex, it is the pest 
and reproach of both. And all because of its beauty. 
A man has a privilege to be ugly, and though it be true 



12 ERRA TIC ESSA YS. 

enough, as Madame de Stael wittily observed to Curran, 
that "he should not abuse his privilege" — as Curran 
did most outrageously, — it were better that a man should 
be ugly as Thersites than that being beautiful as Narcis- 
sus he should also be as big a fool. For my own part I 
am " free to confess " — as they used to say in parliament 
long ago, — that I am never comfortable in the same 
room with a Beautiful man. I always feel inclined to 
punch his head. Such is the demoralizing influence of 
Beauty, a sorceress who living but for an hour manages 
to concentrate within that tiny span sins enough for 
centuries — inveigfing all hearts, bamboozling all intel- 
lects, and turning all brains " the seamy side without," 
like the wit of honest Iago. 

So much for Beauty ; and now for Ugliness. There 
are two qualities about Ugliness which compel my pro- 
found respect. The one is her downright honesty ; the 
other is her adamantine durability. There is no hum- 
bug about Ugliness. No ! there are no two ways about 
Ugliness. She provokes no controversy. She is not a 
matter of taste but of fact. Taste is out of court. 
Ugliness stands confessed for what she is, and all men 
are of accord in her regard. Her sheer integrity brooks 
no equivocation. Ugliness is ugly, and there an end. 
She wears no mask ; she sails under no false colors ; 
she presents herself for what she is, and as the jugglers 
say, " there is no deception." Ugliness is thoroughly 
respectable, and however she may be disliked she can- 
not be despised. " Beauty is only skin deep," as all the 
world knows ; but Ugliness goes to the bone. " Hand- 
some is that handsome does " is the consolatory maxim 
of the ill-favored all the world over, but the Beauty of 
the beautiful dwells only in fancy. Then, again, look at 



THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING UGLY. 



l 3 



the permanence of Ugliness. See how it wears. Part 
from a beautiful man and go abroad for eight or ten 
years. Come back at the end of that period, and you 
will look in vain for his beauty. It has vanished like 
snow before the sun. But bid an Ugly man good-bye 
and return to him after the lapse of a like period, and, 
by the Lord Harry, you'll find him ten times Uglier 
than you had left him. And so it is with ladies. How 
often does one hear that most melancholy of all reflec- 
tions evoked by the sight of a woman once lovely, but 
whose loveliness is gone never to return : " How pretty 
she must have been when she was young ! " What a 
sorrowful thought ! If she had been ugly ab initio nobody 
would now mourn over the ruin of her beauty. People 
would say " Bless her heart ! she improves in ugliness. 
I remember her a girl, and she was ordinary enough in 
all conscience, but now she is a Gorgon." Beauty goes 
off with youth like the bloom of a plum ; but Ugliness 
endures like the stone. Truest of friends, it abides 
with its votaries all the days of their lives. There is no 
need of an unguent to make you ugly for ever. Once 
Ugly, you grow Uglier and more Ugly to the end of the 
chapter. And then consider the mental serenity of the 
Ugly. Of the many happy privileges enjoyed by the 
plain sisterhood, one of the happiest is the thought that 
they, at all events, are not responsible for the horrid 
feuds and execrable conflicts by which the peace of the 
world has been from time to time disturbed. Let the 
blue-eyed and the golden-tressed look to it ; the Ugly 
have free* souls, without fear and without reproach. At 
their doors lies no blood-guiltiness. Who ever yet 
heard of two friends fighting a duel, much more of two 
nations going to war, on account of an ugly woman ? 



I 4 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

The very notion is preposterous. Nor can it be charged 
against the ill-favored that they are in any degree ac- 
countable for the sorrows and solicitudes which are 
incidental to matrimony. " Une femme laide est un 
homme pour moi" — an ugly woman is a man for me — 
says Theophile Gautier, and I am altogether of his way of 
thinking. I had as soon marry the Lord High Chancel- 
lor or the Commander of the Forces as an Ugly woman. 
It is too bad that men should have this prejudice ; but 
they have, and there is no arguing against it. Yet some 
of the pleasantest people I have ever known, both men 
and women, have been and are as Ugly as if they had 
been bespoken. They know no change. It is a thing 
of Ugliness, not of Beauty, that is a joy forever. The 
very imputation of Ugliness has in it a charm which 
enthralls the imagination. Thus Lord Byron tells us 
that the only way to bring an exorbitant hackney- 
coachman to his senses is to look at him steadily be- 
tween the eyes, and after carefully perusing his features 
to say, " Well ! you are the Ugliest man that ever trod 
the earth." Cabby appreciates the compliment, owns 
the soft impeachment, and is content with his fare. 
Depend upon it to kalon is the one thing wrong in the 
world. The Ugly alone deserve admiration. One may 
admire an Ugly woman with such intensity of admira- 
tion that one would not dare to marry her. You, dear 
reader, are beautiful — I know you are ; you will acquit 
me, therefore, of any intention to flatter you when I ask 
you whether some of the nicest, dearest, best persons 
you have ever met are not downright ugly ? Of course 
they are ! True, I know a man who is as Ugly as sin 
and not half as pleasant ; but then he suffers from bun- 
ions, poor fellow, and in any case he is but the excep- 



THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING UGLY. IS 

tion that proves the rule. It may be egotistical to say 
so, doubtless it is ; but I have ever loved, and ever shall 
love, ugly people. Apart from the charms of their con- 
versation, which has nothing of the frivolity that so often 
disgraces the talk of the Beautiful, I find a strange de- 
light in perusing the features of the Ugly. There is 
intolerable monotony in a finely chiselled face. Its 
regularity is irksome to behold. The Ugly — and they 
alone — are picturesque. Irregularity is to their linea- 
ments what undulation is to a landscape, the key to that 
variety of outline which is all-essential to artistic effect. 
A fellow on whom Nature has graciously bestowed a 
turn-up nose bears about him the physical emblem of 
disdain, and always seems to be treating the world with 
the scorn and contempt of which the world is richly 
deserving. Beetle eyebrows call to mind a glossy, amia- 
ble insect ; high cheek bones have a bold, majestic, cliff- 
like look j a low forehead bespeaks the gentle virtue of 
humility ; and a mouth that is like unto an oven resem- 
bles a very good thing. And then for eyes — why should 
eyes be fellows ? Surely it is much more useful as well 
as ornamental that one eye should look to the west, the 
other to the east. I love a man with a squint — 

" If ancient poets Argus prize, 
Who boasted of a hundred eyes ; 
Sure, greater praise to him is due 
Who sees a hundred ways with two." 

As for figure, why should the human form be straight. 
Any poker may be straight. The line of beauty is a 
curve. Moreover, a friend in-kneed is a friend indeed ! 
Taking into consideration this and many kindred facts, 
I am clearly of opinion that the time is come for reviv- 



! 6 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

ing Sir Richard Steel's "Ugly Club" — that famous 
fraternity which was founded upon the principle that no 
one should be admitted to membership, " without a 
visible queerity in his aspect, or a peculiar cast of coun- 
tenance, or some personal eccentricity set forth in a table 
entitled ' The Act of Deformity.' " Such an institution 
would be of great use in bringing the world to under- 
stand the many and admirable advantages of being 
ugly. 



THE INCOMMUNIC ABILITY OF SORROW. 



OORROW is incommunicable. There is something 
^^ ineffably sorrowful in the thought. The simple fact 
that we are in sorrow is, of course, easy of communica- 
tion, but the personal import of that fact is not to be 
told. No man can make another understand the nature, 
character, and extent of the sorrow by which he is him- 
self desolated. That is what I mean by the incommuni- 
cability of sorrow. You may be grieved to the soul to 
learn that your friend is in affliction. You may be ready 
to go through fire and water, so to speak, to rescue him, 
but as for comprehending the quality of his grief, fathom- 
ing its depths, or measuring its poignancy, you might as 
well undertake to count the stars. Nor is he in any 
better case towards you. He can no more enter into 
your tribulation than you into his. Each may see but 
too plainly that the other suffers, each may sympathize 
most cordially with the other, but neither can appreciate 
at the true value of its anguish the grief that wrings the 



THE INCOMMUNIC ABILITY OF SORROW. z j 

other's heart. An old French proverb puts the question 
in the clearest possible light, — " Si vous voulez pleurer 
mes malheurs, prenez mes yeux : " " If you would weep 
my sorrows, you must take my eyes." Just so. It will 
not do for you to put yourself in my place. You must 
discard your own identity and assume mine. To enter 
into my feelings, you must take upon you my being. 
Nothing short of an interchange of natures can qualify 
you to understand my sorrows, or me to understand 
yours ; and any such interchange being impossible, our 
sorrows are incommunicable. " The heart knoweth his 
own bitterness," wrote Solomon, the son of David ; and 
what man or woman is there whose own experience does 
not bear witness to the truth of the assertion ? " One 
can never be the judge of another's grief," says 
Chateaubriand, " for that which is a sorrow to one, to 
another is joy. Let us not dispute with any one con- 
cerning the reality of his suffering ; it is with sorrows 
as with countries, — each man has his own." 

Sorrow is of general prevalence, but of particular 
operation. Every man's griefs are so interwoven with 
his personal history as to have become part of himself. 
He and they may not be sundered. Take, for example, 
the supremest of all sorrows, that which we endure in 
the loss of those we love. Let me put the cruel hypoth- 
esis that you have lost a child. Your friend to whom 
you impart the fact may have passed through the same 
ordeal. He, too, may have wept over the grave of a son 
or of a daughter. «His heart bleeds for you, because of 
your common calamity, yet is he unable to understand 
the special force and peculiar poignancy of your bereave- 
ment. That is known to you, and to you alone of all 
the world. The very name of your Beloved strikes 

2 



18 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

chords of feeling to him unknown, evokes memories to 
which he is a stranger, elicits associations which to hrm 
are mysteries. A trick of feature, a tone of the voice* 
a resemblance in manner, a song, which your Loved 
one delighted to sing, a place which he or she was 
wont to visit, the merest trifle of every-day life, will 
recall vanished scenes to you alone intelligible, and 
awaken in your heart emotions which no other heart 
than yours can share or comprehend. " You are as fond 
of grief as of your child," says King Philip to Queen 
Constance, bewailing her pretty Arthur. How eloquent 
is the reply of the broken-hearted mother ! — 

" Grief fills the room up of my absent child, 
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, 
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, 
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form. 
Then have I reason to be fond of grief. 
Fare you well ! " 

And so it is with all kinds of sorrow. They appeal 
to reminiscences with which we alone are familiar \ they 
have darkened prospects which we alone delighted to 
contemplate ; they have killed hopes which we alone 
cherished ; they have cast shadows upon a path which 
we alone must traverse. Therefore is our sorrow in- 
communicable : " Si vous voulez pleurer mes malheurs, 
prenez niesyeux" 

In her charming little book, the Life of Isaac Hopper \ 
Maria Childs makes some reflections which will come 
home to all who have ever suffered. " Who does not 
know that all the sternest conflicts of life can never be 
recorded ? Every human soul must walk alone through 
the darkest and most dangerous paths of its pilgrimage 



THE INCOMMUNICABALITY OF SORROW. 19 

„ —absolutely alone with God. Much from which we 
suffer most acutely could never be revealed to others ; 
still more could never be understood, if it were revealed \ 
and still more ought never to be repeated, if it could be 
understood." Somewhat similar in sentiment are the 
meditations of a thoughtful German writer, whose words 
may be translated thus : — " It is not that which is 
apparent, not that which may be known and told, which 
makes up the bitterest portion of human suffering, which 
plants the deepest furrow on the brow and sprinkles 
the hair with its earliest grey ! They are the griefs which 
lie fathom-deep in the soul, and never pass the lip ; 
those which devour the heart in secret, and which send 
their victim into public with the wild laugh and troubled 
eye ; those which spring from crushed affections and 
annihilated hopes ; from remembrance, and remorse, 
and despair ; from the misconduct or neglect of those 
we love ; from changes in others ; from changes in our- 
selves." Nor is it alone the guilty, haunted by the 
visions of their misdeeds, like Orestes by the Furies, or 
Richard by the Phantoms, who have cause for dejection. 
An incommunicable sorrow may have been generated 
by folly or obduracy as surely as by sin. The man who 
has found out too late that he married the wrong woman ; 
the woman who has made the like discovery in the case 
of a man ; the men and women who have missed their 
paths in life, or lost their chances, or abused their 
privileges, or, to use a homely phrase, " played their 
cards badly," — all these people have occasions of dis- 
tress beyond the ken of the outer world. So true is it, 
that * our acts our angels are, or good or ill, our fatal 
shadows that walk by us still." And the saddest thought 
of all is, that the most trivial circumstances will suffice 
to awaken the most tragical reminiscences : — 



20 ERRA TIC ESSA VS. 

" For ever and anon of griefs subdued, 
There comes a token like a scorpion's sting, 
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued, 
And slight withal may be the things which bring 
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling 
Aside for ever : it may be a sound — 
A tone of music — summer's eve — or spring— 
A flower — the wind — the ocean — which shall wound, 
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly 
bound." 

Then, again, there is the man who, though he works 
hard and does his best, can never give satisfaction to 
those whom he loves and in whose cause he toils. Who 
shall fathom the sorrow of such a wretch ? Who shall 
express his sense of humiliation ? 

How tender, how melodious, how full of melancholy 
eloquence are these familiar lines ! — 

" I have a silent sorrow here, 
Which never will depart ; 
It heaves no sigh, it sheds no tear, 
But — it consumes my heart." 

All forms of tribulation incidental to humanity, 
whether caused by the death of those whose life is 
essential to our happiness, or by illness, or by the loss 
of fortune, or by the darkening of fair fame, or by the 
overflow of cherished projects, or by whatsoever other 
malign influence, bring with them a certain incommuni- 
cable anguish which is, in fact, the cross that every man 
and woman is appointed to carry, and which can be laid 
down only at the grave. In the estrangement of old 
friends there lurks a sorrow which, being incapable of 
impartment, is past all surgery. A friend for whom 
you would willingly lay down your life may not have 



THE INCOMMUNICABILITY OF SORROW. 2 I 

done you any deliberate wrong or wilful injury ; he would 
probably shrink with horror from the very thought of 
such a thing ; but he may none the less have destroyed 
your peace and ruined your happiness by his perverse 
conduct, his maddening inconsistency, or his ill-advised 
interference in your affairs. To make him comprehend 
the mischief he has wrought is out of the question. 
Conscious of the purity of his motives, he forgets what 
tragedies have sprung from good intentions, and he 
ignores the disastrous consequences of his actions. He 
cannot, for the life of him, weep over the misery he has 
caused, because he cannot take your eyes. You love 
him dearly, but you and he cannot get on together. 
The plague of Babel is upon you both, and neither can 
understand the other. In no case more poignantly 
than in this do we feel the incommunicability of sorrow : 
" Sivous voulez pleurer mes malheurs, prenez mes yeux" 
Alas, my heart ! It is not to be done. 

Though a thousand friends were grouped around the 
bed of a dying man, still must he die alone. Unaccom- 
panied by any one of those who view with anguish the 
ebbing of the tide of life must he descend into the 
valley of the shadow of death. And as it will be in 
death, so also is it in life. Through the most moment- 
ous eras of our earthly career, every man and woman of 
us must walk, not, it may be, uncared for, nor unloved, 
but alone, all alone. The sense of solitude inspired by 
this thought is indeed saddening ; yet it may be turned 
to profitable account. Of what avail is it to attempt to 
explain that which is in its very nature inexplicable ? 
What good end is to be attained by harassing our friends 
with the recital of griefs which, however they may com- 
miserate, they cannot comprehend ? The selfishness of 



2 2 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

such a proceeding is apparent at a glance. There is 
no patent of affliction. Every man has sorrows enough 
of his own, without being saddled with those of his 
friends as well. Every man must carry his own cross. 
To seek to shift it upon other shoulders were as futile 
as unmanly. * Bear ye one another's burdens." Yes, 
by all means, in the sense of giving our help and sym- 
pathy to all who are in affliction, but not in the hopeless 
sense of torturing others with a tale of woe intelligible 
only to ourselves. " We must instruct our sorrows to 
be proud." Let us cull comfort, if not from the sub- 
lime precepts of Christianity, at all events from the be- 
nign philosophy of the Ancients. Come what may, 
never forget this august maxim, " Qui silenter patitur 
nullo ilk spernitur deo ; " " He who suffers in silence is 
not disdained by any god." 



THE DIGNITY AND DELIGHT OF IGNO- 
RANCE. 

T)OETS and speakers, • more or less melodious and 
eloquent, have not been wanting to sound the 
praises of Imagination, of Memory, and of Hope. How 
strange it is — how very strange — that no one should 
ever have attempted to celebrate the dignity and delight 
of Ignorance ! What nobler theme than this could 
possibly inspire the harp of the lyrist, the pen of the 
essayist, or the tongue of the orator ? Distrustful of my 
own ability, however richly endowed with Ignorance, to 
rise to the grandeur of the " topic," I should hesitate 



DIGNITY AND DELIGHT OF IGNORANCE. 



23 



to approach it, but that a strong sense of duty impels 
me to do my best to supply what must be universally 
regarded as a desideratum in literature. I propose, 
therefore, to devote this essay to a consideration of the 
claims of Ignorance upon the admiration and gratitude 
of mankind. I have already unmasked Beauty, expos- 
ing her to the world in her true colors as the basest of 
sirens, the most perfidious of sorceresses. Come for a 
ramble with me to-day, dear reader mine, and I hope to 
conduct you safely to a happy destination — the profound 
conviction that Knowledge ranks next after Beauty in the 
order of mischief, sharing with her the bad distinction 
of pre-eminent hostility to the peace and happiness of 
the human race. Bear with me for a while and you 
shall be proud to acknowledge that the amount of man's 
ignorance is the measure of his felicity. " Non mens 
hie sertno." While disclaiming 'any intention to ven- 
ture upon the shoreless sea of dogmatic theology, I may 
be permitted to remind you of what all Christians are 
of accord in admitting, let their differences on other 
points be what they may — namely, that we should all be 
now leading joyous and sinless lives in the amaranthine 
groves of Paradise had it not been that Adam, at the 
instigation of his wife, ate in an evil hour of the tree of 
knowledge. Conscious of this fact and pathetically ob- 
servant of its influence on the destiny of man, Solomon, 
the son of David, set- his hand to this memorable declar- 
ation, " In the multitude of wisdom is grief, and he that . 
increaseth wisdom increaseth sorrow." On this immor- 
tal maxim I take my stand as on a rock, defying con- 
tradiction and laughing my assailants to scorn. • It was 
quite in the spirit of Solomon's benignant philosophy 
that Matthew Prior penned his verse, witty as musical : — 



24 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

" If we see right we see our woes, 

Then what avails it to have eyes ? 
From ignorance our comfort flows, 

The only wretched are the wise." 

Yes. Solomon was right ; so was Prior ; so, not to 
speak it profanely, am I. Don't be run away with by 
your feelings. View the question dispassionately, and 
regarding it honestly from what point you may, you will 
still be driven in candor to the conclusion that Beauty 
and Knowledge are man's direst foes, Ugliness and 
Ignorance his truest friends. The next best thing to 
being ugly is to be ignorant. Be both if you can ; but 
that were more easily said than done. The man who is 
at once ugly and ignorant — and such a man have I met 
ere now — may be said to have reached the very acme of 
human felicity ; but such a combination of good luck is 
rare, indeed. He who possesses it may account himself 
the prime favorite of fortune. " Is deis, is superis, prox- 
imus est" Ugliness is a gift — a special blessing inher- 
ited from Nature, not to be acquired by art. The 
beauty of ignorance is that it is within the reach of 
every one. Not everybody can be ugly, but any one 
can be ignorant. What a blessed thought ! Then let 
us be ignorant ; as we value our happiness, let us be 
ignorant ! Is it not written, " in the multitude of wis- 
dom is grief, and he that increaseth wisdom increaseth 
sorrow ? " and does not every day's experience attest 
the truth of the saying, " Utinam ne scirem liter as ? " 
" Oh ! that I had never known my letters," exclaimed 
the unhappy Abbe Lamennais ; and what man of sense 
is there who would not echo that sentiment ? Forgery 
would have been unknown, and Dr. Dodd, instead of 
being hanged at Newgate, would have died in his bed 






DIGNITY AND DELIGHT OF IGNORANCE. 25 

had he not learned to write. "Where ignorance is 
bliss 'tis folly to be wise," sang Gray, the poet ; and 
where in this weary world is ignorance not bliss ? where 
is it not folly to be wise ? One of the happiest men I 
have ever known is one solid mass of ignorance. He 
doesn't know a wheel-barrow from an act of parliament ; 
yet is he the luckiest, jolliest man on earth, as rich as 
the sea, and the very picture of fat, contented ignorance. 
His round rosy face, his witless laugh, everything about 
him bespeaks utter vacuity of mind. " Thought would 
destroy his paradise." Educate a man and you make 
him critical ; being critical he will become fastidious : 
and once fastidious, farewell forever to enjoyment ! To 
an ignorant man the world is full of surprises ; and sur- 
prise is, according to Burke, one of the primary elements 
of happiness. A lettered man is surprised at nothing. 
" Nil admirari " is the maxim of his joyless life ; but 
your ignoramus is ever in a transport of sudden delight. 
Explain things to him, and you destroy interest and 
curiosity at a blow. It is mystery that gives zest and 
piquancy to existence. Who would find the slightest 
satisfaction in the marvellous exhibition of a conjurer if 
the secret of his magic were divulged? Why should 
any man be taught algebra, that " execrable joke," as 
the old gentleman calls it in the play ? Tom Sheridan 
was one of the pleasantest, brightest-hearted of men, 
yet he lived and died in the belief that algebra was one 
of the learned languages. Your scholar, roving by the 
sea-side, sets his poor brains on the rack thinking about 
conchology, the current of the tides, the law of storms, 
and all the rest of it. Your ignoramus doesn't care a 
fig-stalk for any of these things : and what the worse is 
he ? He enjoys his walk, and goes home with the appe- 



26 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

tite of a hunter. No knotty points of science spoil his 
digestion at the dinner-table or chase sleep from his pil- 
low at night. He rises fresh and vigorous in the morn- 
ing, and goes for a ramble through the woods. Here 
no questions either of botany or philosophy disturb his 
repose : — 

" A primrose by the river's brim, 
A yellow primrose is to him, 
And it is nothing more." 

Certainly not. What more should it be, Mr. William 
Wordsworth? Surely you don't mean to say that it is 
an artichoke ? No ; a primrose is a primrose, and noth- 
ing else on earth. " Fleas are not lobsters, d their 

eyes ! " said Peter Pindar with equal truth and elegance, 
Then again for astronomy. What's the use of it ? what 
good purpose can it possibly serve ? Mr. William 
Shakespeare was a man of no small intellect, and mark 
what he says about astronomers : — 

These earthly godfathers of Heaven's lights, 

That give a name to every fixed star, 
Have no more profit of their shining nights 

Than those that walk and wot not what they are." 

Not a jot ! Who ever heard of the moon shining 
more brightly, or of the stars winking more waggishly, 
at an astronomer than at any other man ? It is more 
than they would dare to do. Moreover, it is worthy of 
remark, that learning takes the pluck out of a man. 
The learned are ever cautious and circumspect ; the 
illiterate are intrepid and adventurous. Fools rush in 
where angels dare not tread, so that you see the fools 
have by far the best of it. They go in and win while the 
angels stand outside shivering in the cold. Learning 



DIGNITY AND DELIGHT OF IGNORANCE, 2 7 

destroys a man's faith in his own work. An ignorant 
man may quarrel with all the world besides, but he is 
invariably on the best of terms with himself. He is in 
love with himself, and — as the French epigram phrases 
it, " n y a point de rival " — has no rival. Give him mental 
culture, and his self-esteem vanishes in an instant. His 
arrogance and presumption will disappear, taking with 
them his peace of mind. Teach him music, and the 
barrel-organs and brass bands to which he now listens 
with rapture will jar upon his ear with intolerable dis- 
cord. The vilest chromo is now to his eyes even as the 
lovliest Claude. Give him an idea of color and form, 
and he will no longer sit in the same room with the 
daubs that once gladdened his eyes. You will have de- 
prived him of innumerable sources of delight. He will 
fall into a wretched habit of forming unfavorable com- 
parisons, and instead of enjoying the sublime spectacles 
presented to his vision, he will bethink him of others 
yet more delightful which he may not behold. When 
he sees Mr. Lowe upon his bycicle, instead of being 
thankful to fortune for the noble sight, he will hark back 
in imagination to classic times and picture to his mind's 
eye Alexander mounted upon Bucephalus. When some- 
body reads to him a page of Mr. Tupper, instead of 
clapping his hands in transport, he will groan inwardly 
and shout for Mr. Tennyson. He has eaten of the tree 
of knowledge and the fruit has disagreed with him. 
And so it is all the world over. We sit through a play, 
and read through a book, deriving amusement from 
each, because we are as yet unaware of the denouement 
of either. Think you that the crowds swarming eagerly 
through the streets of London in the prosecution of 
business, or the holiday-makers who, frantic with en- 



28 ERRA TIC ESS A YS. 

thusiasm, throng the banks of the Thames to witness 
the Boat Race, .would be thus zealous in the pursuit, 
either of profit or of pleasure, could they but gaze into 
futurity and see with what sorrows and solicitudes the 
coming years may be fraught for them ? No ; they are 
happy because they are ignorant — happy, too, in the 
precise proportion of their ignorance. The veil that 
hides the future from their view was woven by the hand 
of Mercy. And as with the future, so also with the 
past ; the less we know of either the better for our 
mental tranquility. Othello found not Cassio's kisses 
on the lips of Desdemona till Iago told him they were 
there, so true is it that, 

" He that is robbed, not wanting what is stolen, 
Let him not know it and he's not robbed at all." 

How much more comfortable would this world be, 
and how much more smoothly should we all jog along 
together in it, were it not that some restless, inquisitive 
busybodies are eternally enlightening us on a matter in 
respect of which ignorance were indeed bliss. Spoon- 
fed from earliest infancy upon the London fog, I would 
now swallow it like jelly, and deem it an atmospheric 
delicacy, but that I was bullied to visit Italy, the Medi- 
terranean, and the South of France. Ever since I 
have sickened at the thought of my native fog, and 
shuddered at the sight of the mustard-poultice in which 
the English sun is picturesquely bandaged. Those 
wretched analysts, too, what misery they cause me ! 
Why will they not let me eat my food and drink my 
liquor in peace ? I am willing enough to take things 
for what they profess to be, and to enjoy them accord- 
ingly. I don't want to be told that my butter is lard, 



THE DELIGHTS OF DECEPTION. 29 

my bread alum, my milk chalk and dogs' brains, my 
port log-wood and sloes, my sausages dead cats, or my 
vinegar muriatic acid. Devil take it ! Can't you leave 
me alone and let me be poisoned in peace ? What is 
it to you ? only that you are poor and busy. Prejudice 
they say is the daughter of Ignorance. What then? 
An illustrious lineage for a most respectable progeny. 
Nothing can be mpre respectable than honest prejudice, 
and the more pig-headed it is the better. Of all things 
in the world it is the most convenient, seeing that it 
supersedes the necessity for reasoning and argument. 
I am proud to say that I am a man of the most accom- 
plished ignorance and the most inveterate prejudice, 
and I would not exchange my ignorance and prejudice 
for the wisdom of Minerva and her Owl. Not content 
with unsexing our women and destroying the supply of 
domestic servants, those pestilential school boards — 
but hark ! What's that ? The clock ! And gone 
twelve ! I had no idea it was so late. " To bed . — to 
bed ! " as Lady Macbeth beautifully remarks. I can 
write no more for the money \ but I hope I have written 
enough to prove that Ignorance is man's best friend, 
and that high indeed is her dignity and matchless her 
delight. 



THE DELIGHTS OF DECEPTION. 

/^RANTED that a lie in morals is a turpitude un- 
^* worthy of a gentleman, the fact remains that a lie 
is the very soul of art, and that without it there were no 
art worthy of the name. In fact, a lie stands in pretty 



3 o ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

much the same relation to art as grapes to wine or hops 
to beer. It is wonderful to think how subtle and in- 
soluble is the connection between deceit and intellec- 
tual enjoyment. Take what province of mental effort 
you may, whether the dramatic, the artistic, or the 
literary, and you will find that deceit is the warp from 
which has been woven the web of the spell that en- 
chants you. When Butler wrote his immortal maxim — 
" The pleasure is as great of being cheated as to cheat," 
he gave expression to one of the truest, profoundest 
thoughts that ever fell from the pen or lips of man. 
The more we dwell upon it the more vivid becomes our 
sense of the wealth of philosophy hived within the 
homely saying, like honey in the bag of the bee. " Qui 
vult decipi decipiatur" — let him be deceived who de- 
sires to be deceived, says the Latin proverb, and what 
man is there, or woman either, who does not cherish 
such a desire ? — 

" What man so wise, what earthly wit so rare 

As to descry the crafty cunning train 
By which deceit doth mask in visor fair 

And seem like Truth whose shape she well can feign ?" 

There is no such man, good old Edmund Spenser, 
and if there were he would be the most unhappy wretch 
on earth. This disenchanted world would lose all its 
lustre for him who could no longer find joy either in 
being cheated or to cheat. For what do we go to the 
play, inspect a picture, or read a story, if not for the 
luxury of being befooled for a season into a belief in 
that which we know to be untrue ? If it were humanly 
possible for Mr. Sothern to be really Lord Dundreary, 
for Mr. J. S. Clarke to be truly Dr. Pangloss, for Mr. 






THE DELIGHTS OF DECEPTION. 31 

Toole to be actually Paul Pry, or for Mr. Irving to be 
veritably Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, we should derive 
but little satisfaction from seeing any one of these 
artists. We are profoundly convinced that it is physi- 
cally impossible for any actor to be in reality the person- 
age whom he pretends to be, and that conviction is the 
main-spring of all the enjoyment that we experience in 
the contemplation of acting. We are lost in wonder and 
delight to think with what consummate craft a man can 
put off the semblance of himself and assume that of 
somebody else who may have lived hundreds of years 
ago, or, stranger still, who may never have lived at all, 
being merely an ideal creation made incarnate by the 
raagic of genius. In each case the artist is employed 
upon the exquisite elaboration of a lie, which he has 
brought at last to such perfection that truth seems false- 
hood to it. Hence the gratification we find in witness- 
ing their work. We know that we are being imposed 
upon ; but we willingly surrender . our judgment to the 
masterly impostors, and our pleasure is in the precise 
proportion of the skill with which we are bamboo- 
zled. And as in playing, so in painting. What is it that 
awakens our admiration in viewing a finely-executed 
landscape ? It is assuredly the marvellous hypocrisy 
with which the painter conveys the sense of space, imi- 
tates the hues of vegetation, the form and movement of 
the clouds, the action and expression of seas and rivers, 
and by means of a speck or two of color upon an inch 
or two of canvas realizes to the vision of the spectator 
the amazing mystery of perspective. These be no true 
skies, no real rivers ; these trees that seem to wave are 
in fact motionless ; there is not a drop of water in that 
foaming sea; not a gleam of light in the sunbeams, 



32 &RRA TIC ESS A VS. 

dancing upon its radiant surface ; of course not. It is 
all deception — rank deception ; it is but a painted lie, 
and for that very reason we love it and would beg, buy, 
or steal it if we had the chance. We plume ourselves 
upon our sagacity, but we are fooled to the top of our 
bent and glory in the fact. We are in no better case 
than the silly cock of true Yankee breed who crows to 
wake the morn with his shrill clarion, it matters not at 
what hour of the day he may behold Mr. Church's pic- 
ture of " Sunrise in the Andes." In the perusal of 
some great work of fiction, such, for example, as Tom 
Jones, Ivanhoe, or Pickwick, we are equally, though in a 
different sense, the willing victims of deception, giving 
loose rein to our fancies, and gladly suffering the author 
to lure us out of this work-a-day world into what im- 
aginary realms he listeth. We are but puppets in his 
hands, and dance to what music he may be pleased to 
play. It is all humbug, sheer humbug ; but we like to 
be humbugged, and but for that precious privilege life 
would be intolerably monotonous. Nor is it only in the 
ideal realms of literature and art that deceit bears su- 
preme sway, or that man finds pleasure in deluding or 
being deluded. The same rule holds good in every 
section of society and in all the operations of every-day 
life. Dryden tells the tale with his customary vigor of 
illustration : — 

" For the dull world most homage pay to those 
Who on their understanding most impose. 
First man creates, and then he fears the elf ; 
Thus others cheat him not, but he himself. 
He hates realities, and hugs the cheat, 
And still the only pleasure's the deceit j 
So meteors flatter with a dazzling dye, 
Which no existence has but in the eye. 



THE DELIGHTS OF DECEPTION, 33 

At distance prospects please us, but when near, 
We find but desert rocks and fleeting air ; 
From stratagem to stratagem we run, 
And he knows most who latest is undone." 

What would become of quackery, in all its multitu- 
dinous forms of cozenage, but for that inveterate love of 
being cheated, which is one of the most mystical endow- 
ments of our nature ? Were it not for that unaccount- 
able and irrepressible attribute of ours, where would the 
projectors of bubble companies be ? how would law and 
physic thrive? where would Messrs. Maskelyne and 
Cooke and the whole college of conjurers be ? and 
whither should the countless army of " chevaliers cT In- 
dustrie" who now batten upon the credulity of the 
public, turn for a dinner ? It stands to reason that both 
in cheating and in being cheated there must be what 
Lord Bacon styles " a constant quick sense of felicity 
and a noble satisfaction." And this accounts for a 
great deal of what would otherwise be inexplicable in 
much that is passing around us. It was but the other 
day that a parson was taken up by the police for having 
stolen an eightpenny book from one of the stalls at a 
provincial railway station. The reverend gentleman 
was in excellent circumstances, and could have well 
afforded to pay for the book ; but no ; if he had done 
so he would have missed the intellectual gratification of 
knowing that he had eluded the vigilance of the boy 
who had charge of the stall. He succeeded in so doing, 
and must have felt proud of the achievement. Unhap- 
pily, however, he did not escape the lynx eye of 198 Z, 
at whose righteous hands he came to grief. Then again 
it is an every-day occurrence for well-dressed men 
occupying a reputable position in society to be detected 
3 



54 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

in the fraud of travelling in a first-class carriage, though 
they had only purchased a third-class ticket. Do you 
suppose that these men run the risk of a ruinous expo- 
sure for the sake of saving a few shillings, or it may be 
a few pence ? It is inconceivable. They run the risk, 
and think it well worth running for the glory of thinking 
that they have "done" the company. Stolen kisses 
are sweet ; so too are stolen rides. To overreach in a 
bargain is with some traders the highest art of com- 
merce, and it is more than probable that this sentiment, 
quite as much as the desire of unjust gain, is at the root 
of the adulteration system. It has been said that your 
true-born Yorkshireman would go through fire and water 
for his father, but could not withstand the temptation 
of " Jockeying " him in a transaction of horse-flesh. Be 
this as it may, there is no denying that, not in Yorkshire 
alone, but all the world over, the delights of deceit are 
often too fascinating to be resisted. This is no new 
thing. Centuries have elapsed since Sir T. Wyatt wrote 
this quaint verse — not less true than quaint : — 

" Soonest he speeds that most can lie and feign, 
True-meaning heart is had in high disdain ; 
Against deceit and cloaked doubleness, 
What 'vaileth truth or perfect steadfastness ? " 

But of all forms of deception, the most amusing to 
the spectators, and the most disastrous to the parties 
mutually deceiving and being deceived, are those fre- 
quently practised in the art and mystery of love-making. 
It too often happens that each of the lovers wears a 
mask, and that both are equally intent upon the same 
design of throwing dust in the other's eyes. They wear 
the most seductive of smiles, tone their voices to the 



THE DELIGHTS OF DECEPTION. 



35 



most melodious of keys, assume an air of the most gra- 
cious courtesy, and leave nothing undone to make it 
appear that they are infinitely sweeter, nicer, and better 
than they really are. To use the terrific metaphor of 
Lady Macbeth, " they look like the innocent flower and 
are the serpent under it." This perfidious game goes 
on through the whole course of courtship, the gentleman 
passing for a very Bayard of fearless and irreproachable 
chivalry, the lady simply for a seraph whose wings have 
moulted. With marriage comes the " desillusionne- 
ment." Both the high contracting parties then drop 
their masks, and each stands confessed for what he or 
she really is, a common place person enough, and not a 
jot better than the ordinary run of humanity. If they 
would have the sense to accept the situation, and good- 
humoredly to say the one to the other, " Well, we have 
both been acting : the play is over \ let us resume our 
true nature and get on comfortably together," all might 
be well ; but the mischief of it is that instead of pursuing 
that sensible course, each inveighs against the other for 
an hypocrisy of which both were equally guilty. The 
same sort of thing goes on in society in quarters where 
youth, inexperience, and the entrancement of passion 
can no longer be pleaded in extenuation. There is such 
a thing as " company-manners," of all things in the world 
the most hollow and deceptive. A witty French essayist 
has divided our friends into three classes, " Ceux qui 
nous aiment ; ceux qui ne nous aitnent pas ; et ceux qui 
nous detestent " — " Those who love us, those who love 
us not, and those who hate us." Under the regime of 
company-manners all these three classes are treated 
with the like cordiality. The people who deal the most 
abundantly in frowns and sneers at home are not unfre- 



3 6 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

quently the most prodigal of smiles abroad. They are 
not amiable, but they desire to be thought so. They go 
about in a mask, which if not very attractive has at least 
the merit of concealing their true features. But let us 
not be too severe upon mankind either in the abstract 
or the concrete. Something is due to the exigencies 
and " convenances " of society. It would never do to 
tell everybody what you think of him, nor would it at 
all conduce to your own comfort that everybody should 
treat you with the like candor. The sun of social favor 
shines with equal splendor, if not upon the just and 
the unjust, at least upon the genial and the ungenial. 
So that there be nothing against a man's moral charac- 
ter, he is not to be cold-shouldered for an ungainly 
presence which he cannot help, or a perverse temper 
which may perhaps be the result of a weak digestion. 
We must take the world as we find it. The sternest of 
moralists glancing inwardly will have some compassion 
for the innocent deceits of human bodies, if he would 
not shut the gates of mercy on himself. And, after all, 
man is not more wicked in this regard than Nature 
herself, who is everlastingly befooling him. Nothing 
endures ; everything passes away, the brightest still the 
fleetest. Where is the rose of yesterday? Indeed, in 
some respects, Art has the " pull " of Nature, for artifi- 
cial flowers are well-nigh as beautiful as the, flowers 
of the garden, and last much longer, to say nothing 
of their never wanting to be watered. The azure 
sky that gets suddenly overclouded, the gorgeous rain- 
bow vanishing as we gaze, the treacherous ice crashing 
beneath our feet, the sea now smooth and placid, anon 
rough and frantic, the mirage of the desert luring but to 
betray, and the dead-sea fruit which tempts the eye, but 



SUNSHINE AND SHADOW. 37 

turns to ashes on the lip — these are illustrations of the 
delight that Nature takes in deceiving; and Man, 
regarded simply as the Son of Nature, is not much worse 
than his Mother. 



SUNSHINE AND SHADOW. 

TT may, perhaps, tend to our consolation in seasons of 
trial and depression to remember that a fleet alter- 
nation of sunshine and shadow is the inevitable law as 
well of the moral as of the physical world. Nor should 
we fail to observe how beneficial is the operation of that 
law in either sphere. The gracious rains beautify and 
fertilize the earth. We discern their delightful and salu- 
tary influence in the freshness and brilliancy of the 
landscape, in the verdure and lustre of the foliage, in 
the goldenness and affluence of the corn-field, in the 
fragrance and effulgence of the garden. The scenery of 
the firmament is due altogether to the clouds. The 
violet arch of an Italian sky is lovely to look upon for a 
time; but wanting the magnificent drapery of clouds 
with their marvellous refinement of texture, their endless 
diversity of hue and tone, and their infinite variety of 
form, action, and grouping, it soon becomes wearisome 
and monotonous. There is no emotion — no picturesque 
passion in a cloudless sky. It lacks spirit and character. 
To rain as well as light we owe the radiant bow that 
spans the vault of heaven ; and we may thank the clouds 
for those gorgeous effects of light, shade, and color 



38 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

which suffuse the mountain crests with splendor inef- 
fable, and gives to sunset a dazzling grandeur — a mystic 
glory which is the despair of painters. There is not in 
the whole range of literature any more sublime thought 
than that of Sir Walter Raleigh, that sun, moon, and 
stars, resplendently luminous though they seem to our 
eyes, are but shadows of the Omnipotent : — " In the 
glorious light of heaven we perceive the shadows of His 
divine countenance." Descending from such celestial 
contemplations to the consideration of our sublunary 
home, we shall find that whatsoever things are majestic, 
whatsoever things are beautiful in the external world, 
are due in no small degree to the fleet alternation and 
poetic contrast of sunshine and shadow. What can be 
more exquisite than the tremulous network of lights and 
shades cast upon the -green sward by the leaves and 
branches of a tree swaying in the breeze ? What can 
be more graceful than the coursing of shadows over 
bending corn or athwart the sparkling surface of a sum- 
mer sea ? Thunder clears and purifies the atmosphere, 
which for a while it had troubled so alarmingly ; and 
the oak strikes deeper root for its wrestling with the 
storm. 

How wayward soever a man's destiny may be, it will 
not fail to present analogies expressly correspondent 
with Nature, as well in her gladsome as in her pathetic 
aspects. No one who loves manly truth better than 
morbid prejudice will hesitate to admit that if there 
is much to endure, there is also not a little to enjoy in 
our earthly pilgrimage. If life were indeed the dark 
dismal bondage that it is sometimes pictured, who would 
care to live ? Who would not welcome death as the most 
precious of boons ? But we are unfair to Providence and 



SUNSHINE AND SHADOW. 



39 



ourselves. In the intelligent contemplation of the 
manifold beauties that surround us, in the zealous 
exploration of the fair domain of knowledge, in the con- 
verse of loyal friends, in the enchanting mystery called 
love — here, here we have, indeed, abundant sources of 
delight Nor is this all. A thousand things around us 
administer to our physical and intellectual enjoyment. 
The ear is ravished with the melodious strains of music ; 
the eye is gladdened with the cunning creations of art ; 
eloquence and poetry exalt the imagination ; wit and 
humor rejoice the fancy. As steel brighteneth steel, so 
doth the countenance of a man his friend. There is a 
solace beyond all price in the interchange of genial 
thoughts, and a comfort not to be told in the communion 
of sympathetic spirits. Go where they may, little chil- 
dren are ever the harbingers of innocent delight. Joy 
lurks in their rosy smile, glows on their cloudless brows, 
mantles in their damask cheeks, and no rhetoric is com- 
parable to their lisping accents. " To press the velvet 
lip of infancy," as Thomson charmingly phrases it, is 
among our happiest privileges. We recall the days of our 
own childhood, and are lost in wonder to think what can 
have become of the children that we ourselves once were. 
Ah ! what indeed ? In the very sense of physical exist- 
ence, when coupled with perfect health, there is an 
exhilaration to which no words can do justice. Who has 
not felt this the more particularly when engaged in any 
manly exercise, in the hunting-field, or on the cricket- 
ground, or while travelling on foot through a new and 
picturesque country ? There is yet another and a higher 
view of the question. Let no one complain of the want 
of sunshine, that brightest and most beneficial of all — the 
sunshine of the heart — who has not treated himself to 
the priceless luxury of doing good ! 



40 



ERRATIC ESSAYS. 



Ah ! there were no lack of sunshine, moral or natural, 
if it would but last. My only fault with all that is bright 
is that it fades too surely. What is truly tragic in human 
life is not, as some absurdly maintain that it is, destitute 
of joys— on the contrary, it abounds in them, but rather 
that they and we are of such brief duration. The wind 
passeth over us and we are gone ! 

King James I., whom historians and dramatists delight 
to depict as a witless inelegant pedant, wrote a couplet 
of admirable melody and truth, which is more than can 
be said for any other monarch who ever sat upon 
the throne of England : — 

" Crowns have their compass, length of days their date, 
Triumph her tombs, felicity her fate." 

In the sad thoughts thus eloquently expressed, dwells 
all that the human imagination can conceive of poignant 
and disheartening. They are but too true, these tragic 
thoughts, and our personal experiences of their truth are 
the shadows with which our sunbeams are continually 
interlaced. " Life is but a walking shadow," says 
Shakespeare, and who that calls to mind his own 
shattered projects, his blighted hopes, his Vanished 
youth, his broken strength, and, saddest of all, the 
friends he has seen around him fall like leaves in wintry 
weather, can doubt the justice of the saying ? — " Pulvis 
et umbra sumusf" "We are dust and shadow!" Our 
joys are but " the perfume and suppliance of a minute ; " 
our life itself, what is it ? A castle of frost-work confront- 
ing the sun. Faith points to happier spheres of everlasting 
duration, and bleak and dark, indeed, were life with all 
its sunshine but for that hope ; yet am I fain to avow that 



SUNSHINE AND SHADOW, 4I 

in the knowledge that all things lovely hasten to decay, 
that the lustre fades from beauty's eyes, the lily from her 
cheek, that the hand we clasp grows throbless in the 
clasping ; that no two lovers can wed and no two friends 
weave their bond of amity on other condition than this, 
that at no distant day one shall weep over the grave 
of the other; in the knowledge, I say, of all this 
there is, to my thinking, a certain unspeakable sad- 
ness for which the most confident hope of immor- 
tality is powerless wholly to atone. Who has not 
felt that the death of a friend is a sorrow not to be 
surmounted by faith the most fervid and unclouded? 
Who does not know that the loss of a child is an arrow 
in the heart, which the parent takes down to the grave ? 
We are born into shadow as well as sunshine, and, 
though not mourning as those without hope, we must still 
mourn. Never since the Mosaic era has there been any 
such creature on earth as an old man or an old woman. 
Eagles, ravens, and oak trees attain antiquity ; but human 
beings never. We have not time to grow old. We do 
not live long enough. " To look around us and to die," 
as Alexander Pope expresses it, is our utmost achieve- 
ment. " What shadows we are ! What shadows we pur- 
sue ! " exclaimed Edmund Burke. " Ave et Vale / " is 
our covenant of life. Dwelling on these sad fancies one 
autumn evening at the sea-side, as I bethought me of an 
immedicable sorrow, thus spake my melancholy muse in 
her own rude, untutored strain : — 

Hail ! and Farewell ! Such is the fleet condition 
Of earthly intercourse ; we meet to part 
Joy perisheth in rapture of fruition. 

Alas, my heart ! 



42 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

The flowers we gather wither in the grasping ; 
On Beauty's cheek no fadeless lilies dwell ; 
The hand we clasp grows throbless in the clasping. 
Hail ! and Farewell ! 

Hail ! and Farewell ! The smile of welcome beameth 

Brief as effulgent upon lovers' lips. 

In hope exultant, Youth but little dreameth 

Of hope's eclipse. 

Nor cares to think that Time, who looks so radian^ 
Is disenchanting Fancy's magic spell, 
To dust dissolving all her fairy pageant. 

Hail ! and Farewell ! 

Hail ! and Farewell ! 'Tis thus each short-lived pleasure 
Fades from our vision like a phantom wan ; 
We turn to gaze upon our new-found treasure, 

And lo ! 'tis gone. 

Mid the delights that we most keenly covet, 
Still are we startled by fond Memory's knell. 
Ave ! et Vale ! Oh ! my Heart's Beloved, 

Hail ! and Farewell ! 

Let us cull comfort from the knowledge that we are 
in better Hands than our own, and that as the rains 
of heaven beautify and fertilize the earth, as the clouds 
give grandeur to the firmament and splendor to the sun- 
set, as the storm invigorates the trees and the thunder 
purifies the air, even so does sorrow adorn, exalt, and 
refine the human heart. I remember to have met some- 
where — whether in conversation or in reading I cannot 
say — this charming thought, that as the leaves are gently 
detached from the trees by the abundant rains of 
autumn, so are our hearts insensibly sundered from this 
fleeting world by the soft pressure of recorded sorrows. 
Not in identity of worldly interests, as the selfish tell 
us, nor yet in the conviviality of the festive board, con- 



THE DECAY OF THE PICTURESQUE. 43 

sists, as the sons of pleasure would have us believe, 
the true league of brotherhood among men. It 
dwells, believe me, in community of suffering — in a 
common liability to grief. That man will be at 
no great pains to help a friend in adversity who 
has never felt adversity himself. The heart of such 
a man is barren and arid as the sands beneath the 
scorching suns of the equator. Familiarity with the 
shadows of life is essential to sympathy. In him who 
has drunk deeply of this cup of anguish, and in him 
alone, will you find a brother in the hour of danger and 
distress ; for of this rest confidently assured, that all the 
world over there is a bond of sorrow as of blood, and 
that they who mourn are everywhere akin. 



THE DECAY OF THE PICTURESQUE. 



HPHE decay of the picturesque is such a sign of the 
times as the most stoical of philosophers still retain- 
ing one touch of poetic sentiment can hardly contem- 
plate without a sigh. It 'is, I suppose, quite right and 
proper, and in strict accordance with the eternal fitness 
of things, that the ornamental shall give way to the 
practical, and that the graceful and the beautiful shall 
go down before the advancing tide of commercial inno- 
vation ; yet these changes, all inevitable though they be, 
leave the world less lovely, and, in a certain sense, less 
enjoyable than they found it. In these " costermonger- 
ing days " the " dulce " counts for little ; the " utile " 



44 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

alone is regarded. To money-considerations all other 
arguments are subordinated ; and whatsoever things 
are comely and of good repute are so esteemed in 
the precise proportion that they may be turned to pe- 
cuniary advantage. There be men who could find it 
in their conscience to " utilize " the Apollo Belvidere 
into a tailor's dummy, and to boil potatoes in the Port- 
land Vase. Mr. Batty' s niggers are doubtless grinning 
and gloating over their pickles upon the summit of the 
Dolomites. Mr. Mechi's knives haunt you, " the han- 
dles towards your hand," like Macbeth's dagger, in the 
holy places of Palestine ; and you visit the Pyramids 
only to be told that if you want to have your furniture 
removed, Mr. Taylor, of Pimlico, is the man for the job. 
Omnia Roma cum pretio. The poet and the prophet 
are the same ; and when Hamlet speculated upon 
the grim contingency that even as he was speaking the 
dust of Caesar might peradventure be patching a wall to 
expel the winter's flaw, he did but foreshadow, the day 
when the Midland Railway Company would convert a 
churchyard, rich in historic memories, into a luggage 
station. 

A few years ago a ship in full sail was no unfrequent 
spectacle, and the sun rarely shone on a finer. It was, 
in fact, according to the old proverb, the third loveliest 
sight in the world, the other two being a girl in the first 
bloom of her beauty, and a field of golden corn waving 
in the wind. Its lithe, symmetrical structure ; its in- 
genious complications of lines and draperies, its subtle 
play of light and shadows, and the stately, swan-like 
grace of its movements, as it walked the waters like a 
thing of life, all combined to give to a sailing ship a 
majestic charm which gladdened the eye and delighted 






THE DECAY OF THE PICTURESQUE. 45 

the fancy of any spectator not insensible to the enchant- 
ments of form, color, and motion. I never saw such a 
ship that I did not break off my ordinary discourse and 
exclaim in the language of Milton — to the no small be- 
wilderment of the bystanders — 

" But who is this ? What thing of sea or land ? 
Female of sex it seems that so bedecked, 
Ornate and gay, comes this way sailing, 
Like a stately ship of Tarsus bound for th' isles 
Of Javan or Gadire with all her bravery on, 
Sails filled and streamers waving, 
Courted by all the winds that hold them play ! " 

Compare with that superb picture a modern steam- 
boat, panting and groaning like some asthmatic mon- 
ster, tearing the crystal waves with its vile paws of 
paddles, flinging its unwieldy hulk " anyhow " upon the 
tide, and polluting the azure sky and the silver sea with 
volumes of abominable smoke disgorged from its filthy 
funnel. The change, regarded from an aesthetic point 
of view, is not for the better. In the good old days of 
the wooden walls of England, maritime warfare, and 
commerce as well, had their poetic aspects ; but those 
aspects have vanished, or survive only upon the walls 
of the Painted Hall in Greenwich Hospital. Nor is the 
decay of the picturesque in all that relates to locomotion 
less remarkable on land than on sea. What with the 
gaily-colored and sprucely-appointed vehicle itself, with 
its polished doors and emblazoned panels, the team of 
spanking roadsters, swift of foot and glossy of hide, 
champing their bits and tossing their heads daintily in 
the air, as though they were vain of their effulgent har- 
ness, the coachman and the guard both in crimson, the 
one weilding his whip in gallant style, the other making 



4 6 ERRATIC ESSAYS. 

the welkin resound with his trumpet, the mail-coach of 
the olden times, bowling along a level country road at 
the rate of. twelve or thirteen miles an hour, was a right 
joyous and exhilarating sight. The dogs barked, the 
children shouted for delight, the middle-aged waved 
their hats and kerchiefs in the air, and even the old 
folks looked brighter for the vision as it sped merrily 
along. You may see it to this day in the window of my 
friend Mr. Fores' Fine Arts Repository, at the corner 
of Sackville Street, Piccadilly, and, so seeing it, you may 
if you please (for there is no compulsion), heave a sen- 
timental sigh, and quote George Canning's famous 
couplet : — 

" So down thy hill, romantic Ashbourne, glides 
The Derby dilly with its three insides." 

Do me the kindness, sweet reader mine, to contrast 
with that joyous mode of travelling, so favorable to so- 
cial intercourse and romantic adventure, that ghastly 
street upon wheels, our modern railway train, with its 
frantic engine, snorting, screaming, shrieking, puffing, 
panting, blazing away at the rate of a mile a minute, 
while the passengers are rocked to and fro, as though 
they were at sea, and the surrounding landscape rushes 
past like a flash of greased lightning. 

The art of dancing prpperly so-called is extinct, as 
much so as are the mediaeval arts of illumination and 
glass-staining. In agricultural operations the decay of 
the picturesque is everywhere discernible. The days of 
our Daphnes and Chloes, our Strephons and Corydons, 
are gone, never to return. Time was when poets and 
painters made great capital out of the plough, more 
particularly if it were drawn by oxen, and when rakes, 



THE DECAY OF THE PICTURESQUE. 47 

flails, scythes, and reaping-hooks, as used by human 
hands, were turned to excellent account, both in songs 
and pictures ; but that time is vanished, and we shall 
never see it more. Virgil himself could make nothing 
of a steam plough ; nor could even Robert Burns or Mr. 
John Linnell find themes for melodious utterance or 
pictorial illustration in mowing, reaping, raking, or 
threshing, as these operations are now conducted by 
means of machinery. Hay-making was once a charm- 
ing proceeding, and few sounds fell on a poetic ear with 
more harmonious cadence than did the whetting of his 
sickle by a harvestman in a corn-field what time the 
autumnal breeze coursed briskly over the golden crops, 
and the sunbeams painted the meadows with delight. 
But the picturesqueness of husbandry is no more. Bug- 
gins, the builder, has killed it. His tall gaunt chim- 
neys, eternally emitting coils of black smoke, and his 
paltry gim-crack villas of lath and plaster, desecrate the 
fairest landscapes, so that there really seems some rea- 
son to fear that " the country " will soon disappear alto- 
gether, and that at no distant date the grim old proph- 
ecy will be fulfilled of all England being reduced to 
London and market-gardens. The treatment to which 
trees are now subjected, more particularly in the suburbs, 
may well awaken the indignation of any man whose 
heart is not as hard as the nether mill-stone, and whose 
head is not full of mutton kidneys. Greenwich Park 
was one of my favorite haunts in boyhood. In ages yet 
unborn, and probably never to be born, pilgrims will re- 
sort thither with reverential awe to ramble where I was 
wont to ramble. I was there last Sunday, in company 
with a dear friend, and oh ! the pity of it, to think what 
a change has come over the scene ! Glen and glade 



4 8 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

are still there, and verdant nooks and stately avenues ; 
these are as yet inviolate, but the deer who used to troop 
about in dappled herds are gone all but two or three of 
no very attractive type ; gone, too, forever gone, are the 
old pensioners, who, clad in their quaint old uniforms, 
with three-cornered hats and bright-buttoned long- 
flowing coats, used to cram my youthful mind with lies 
to that degree that one lie more would have made it 
burst ; and, saddest tale of all to tell, the majestic 
walnut trees, "those green-robed senators of mighty 
woods," dating from the reign of King Charles II., and 
which had been for generations the pride and glory of 
the park, have been cut across their tops, and are now 
so maimed and mutilated that they have lost all their 
grace and grandeur of form, all their litheness and elas- 
ticity of movement, and, in many instances, look less like 
trees than huge monkey-perches or the climbing poles of 
captive bears. I am not, I grieve to say, so skilled in 
arboriculture as to be able to pronounce authoritatively 
on the question of this horrible mutilation. I cannot say 
whether it is such a proceeding as professional foresters 
would approve ; but this I do know, that it is utterly 
ruinous of the beauty of the trees ; and that it is most 
injurious to their vigor and vitality is a conclusion from 
which the attentive observer cannot escape, for in many 
instances the trees look very sickly, and not a few of 
them are withering at the top. In no park that I have 
ever visited have I seen trees subjected to such treat- 
ment as the walnuts in Greenwich Park. I don't pro- 
fess to be a judge, but, speaking according to my dim 
lights, and according to the testimony of people as ig- 
norant as myself, I should have said that to cut a tree's 
head off was about as wise a proceeding as to cut a 
man's head off, and equally conducive to life. My ex- 






THE DEC A Y OF THE PICTURESQUE. 49 

cellent friend Dr. Bennett, the poet, dwells in this neigh- 
borhood — to its honor be it spoken ; how comes it, I 
should like to know, that his melodious muse, usually so 
' observant of romantic wrongs, is silent on the sorrows 
of the deer, the pensioners, and the walnuts ? Passing 
with easy transition from external nature to rural sports, 
the marks of degeneracy are neither few nor unimpor- 
tant. Fox-hunting, though not now so 'picturesque as 
in the days so happily illustrated by the pencil of Mr. 
Frederick Taylor, is still a graceful and intrepid pastime. 
The meet itself is a pretty sight, a still prettier is the 
run, especially when the men are in pink and well 
mounted, but fox-hunting is not now in such favor as it 
once was ; and as for shooting, it is now seldom known 
in any sense honorable to the manhood of the nation! 
How rarely now we meet with a sportsman who thinks 
of rising at cock-crow and tramping in search of birds 
over meadow and mountain, moss and moor, with a dog 
at his heels ! In lieu of that adventurous and manly 
sport we have battue-shooting and such poulterers' busi- 
ness as the slaughter of pigeons. Why don't those 
Hurlingham heroes come into the city and have a " go 
in " at the Lord Mayor's pigeons in Guildhall ? But if 
our sports are no longer very becoming, what shall be 
said of our clothes? Here, indeed, the decay of the 
picturesque is deplorably apparent. What more pitiful 
contrast can there be than that between the costume of 
the cavalier, as it is depicted, for example, in the pic- 
tures of Sir John Gilbert and Mr. Charles Cattermole, 
and the morning attire of a gentleman of the nineteenth 
century with his chimney-pot hat, his hideous coat, and 
his execrable trousers ? From top to toe he is, as already 
observed, a collection of cylinders. 
4 



5° 



ERRATIC ESSAYS. 



The costume of the British army was once very hand- 
some ; but they are constantly changing it and always 
for the worse. Epaulettes were brilliant and beautiful, 
but epaulettes have long since been abandoned, and the 
blue frock, which was very elegant and soldierly, has 
been discarded for a shell jacket which is neither the 
one nor the other. As for fhe loose tunic recently in- 
troduced, it is beyond comparison the ugliest garment 
ever invented to make the human form unsightly and 
ridiculous. The Highland costume, as it is somewhat 
inaccurately styled, is, to my thinking, the most pic- 
turesque dress in the English army ; but of the many 
regiments which once used it, only three still wear it, 
and the day is probably not remote when sartorial reform 
will abolish the kilt altogether and substitute the trews. 
I confess I am old-fashioned enough to like to see ser- 
vants in livery. Thus clad, they give to a nobleman's 
or gentleman's equipage a certain air of courtly observ- 
ance and attendant pomp which has an imposing effect ; 
yet the fashion is passing rapidly away, and each suc- 
ceeding season one sees fewer liveried servants in the 
park. I, at all events, will not deviate from the old 
usage. Nobody has ever seen nor shall anybody ever 
see my coachman without a wig, my footmen without 
powder, or my page without scores of buttons. The 
time of Queen Anne and the elder Georges may or may 
not have been less comfortable than our own ; but most 
assuredly it was more picturesque. The Upper Ten 
were then magnificently apparelled and wore powder 
and patches and feathers and swords. It must have 
been a gallant sight to see them going to play, opera, or 
ball in their grand old coaches and four, with two or 
three footmen behind, each holding a blazing link : — 



PROUD YOUNG PORTERS. 5 1 

" The dome where pleasure holds her midnight reign 
Here richly decked admits the gorgeous train ; 
Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square, 
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare." 

' Hansoms" were unheard of in those days, and 
tram-cars, of all vehicles the most abominable, were 
beyond the dreams of the wildest maniac who ever raved 
in Bedlam. On the other hand there is less likelihood 
of a man's being hanged nowadays than there was in 
those more romantic times. 



PROUD YOUNG PORTERS. 

CTUDENTS of the " Loving Ballad of Lord Bate- 
*^ man " will not fail to bear in comic remembrance 
the " Proud Young Porter," as not the least amusing 
personage of that delectable romance. His portrait 
has been drawn by Mr. George Cruikshank, and a very 
laughable picture, indeed, it is. How pompous is that 
Proud Young Porter in air, aspect, and expression ! 
How haughty is his mien ! How fantastic is his every 
attitude ! He is altogether a most ridiculous fellow, 
though he has not the slightest suspicion of the fact. 
It would be a great mistake to suppose that the Proud 
Young Porter exists only in poetic fiction. Bless your 
dear heart ! he is of constant recurrence in every-day 
life, and go where he may, he is more free than wel- 
come. The world is infested with Proud Young Por- 
ters, but for whom this planet of ours would be far 
pleasanter and more comfortable than it really is. Be 



5 2 



ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 



it remembered that the word " young " has no necessary 
application to the age of the Proud Porter, but should 
rather be taken to relate to the unfading verdancy of 
his folly and the amaranthine vigor of his vanity. In 
that sarcastic sense, the word " jeune" is often used by 
;he French. " O papa! que vous etes jeune/" — "Well, 
papa, how young you are ! " as much as to say, " What 
a fool you are ! " — observes a brat of seven summers to 
his father, aged sixty, in the comedy of La Famille 
Benoiton. And so it is with your Proud Young Porter. 
A m^n may be well on for ninety, and yet be a Proud 
Young Porter all the same. Nor is it essential that the 
Proud Young Porter should be a veritable carrier of 
burdens, or an actual opener of hall-doors. The phrase 
" Porter " must be understood to express, not the lowly 
occupation, but the ignoble nature of the man who, for 
all his pride, has only the soul of a shoe. Proud Young 
Porters belong to all classes and conditions, all ranks 
and professions of men. You may find them in the 
Church, the Army, the Navy, and the Bar ; in art, liter- 
ature, science and commerce. Wherever found, they 
are snobs and duffers to a man. Your Proud Young 
Porter, of whatever calling, disdains the poor, deeming 
poverty and crime convertible terms. He is easily 
pleased, for he is contented with himself. It invariably 
happens that his disesteem of others is in the precise 
proportion of his inordinate estimate of himself. You 
would like to buy him at your price, and sell him at his 
own, but it would be no such easy matter to procure a 
purchaser. Blackberries cost nothing, and they are 
filling at the price. As much may be said of civility ; 
but though civility were as dear as ottar of roses, your 
Proud Young Porter could not be more chary of it than 



PROUD YOUNG PORTERS. 53 

he is. He cannot vouchsafe a smile or a courteous 
word to any fellow-creature who is not exceedingly 
" well-off," but to such a person he is as servile as he 
is supercilious and offensive to people of smaller means. 
The Proud Young Porter is afflicted with sudden 
ophthalmia when he meets an old school-fellow in a 
seedy coat. For the dear life of him, he cannot see 
him. Friend he has none, that Proud Young Porter ; 
no, not even himself, for though he knows it not, he is 
his own worst enemy. To do him justice, he loves his 
enemy. But proud men never have friends ; neither in 
prosperity, because they know nobody, nor in adversity, 
because then nobody knows them. Your Proud Young 
Porter is alone — all alone in the world. It happens 
almost invariably that he is a bachelor ; for I know not 
how it is, but a married man generally has the " cheek " 
taken out of him. But married or single, your Proud 
Young Porter is a nuisance. He has been starched 
without being washed, and he is, in consequence, the 
most unpleasant person in the world to have anything 
to do with. 

The Proud Young Porter in the Army puts on a lot 
of " side ; " talks of his uniform as " livery," which he 
affects to hold in utter contempt ; scorns civilians, and 
hardly deigns to account Volunteers and Militiamen as 
human beings at all. His speech is only of the " Ser- 
vice," though he never smelt powder stronger than 
tooth-powder, and perhaps not overmuch of that. He 
refers to the Heir- Apparent as " Wales," and to the Com- 
mander-in-Chief as " George." He would have you 
believe that he is hand-and-glove with them both, and 
that he knows all about the secrets of the Horse 
Guards. Nothing could give him keener delight than 



54 



ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 



that England should gp to war with all the nations of 
the earth, for then promotion would go on so quickly ; 
but he hates " Gib.," and has no great stomach for 
India. The Proud Young Porter is not very common 
in the Navy, but even there he sometimes crops up, and 
very edifying, indeed, it is to hear him enlarging on the 
errors of the Admiralty, and the unseaman-like manner 
in which Captain Broadside handled his ship in the 
Channel Fleet. I saw a Proud Young Porter in the 
pulpit no later than last Sunday, and my word ! to 
observe how superbly he tossed his nose in the air, how 
daintily he turned over the leaves of his drowsy ser- 
mon, how authoritatively he delivered himself upon dog- 
mas the most abstruse, and with what flippant famili- 
arity he discoursed on the most solemn and sacred 
themes as though he were in the special confidence of 
Heaven — it was enough to make one shy a hassock at 
his head. Oh ! he was a Proud Young Porter, that 
little exquisite of a parson, five feet one in his stock- 
ings ; and it is to be hoped that his mother has not 
many more like him. Of a very different type was 
another preacher — one Bunyan by name — of whom 
Southey narrates that " he had a great dread of spirit- 
ual pride ; and once after he had preached a very fine 
sermon and his friends crowded round him to shake him 
by the hand, while they expressed the utmost admira- 
tion of his eloquence, he interrupted them, saying, — 
' Ay ! you need not remind me of that, for the devil told 
me of it before I was out of the pulpit ! ' " 

But it is ever so. "I never yet found pride in a 
noble nature, nor humility in an unworthy mind," writes 
good old Owen Feltham. In a like strain discourses 
another ancient worthy : — " I have observed many turn- 



PROUD YOUNG PORTERS. 



55 



bles through life, but I have invariably noticed that it is 
the man who mounts the high horse that receives the 
least pity when he falls." Depend upon it, that Proud 
Young Porter, ungracious as he is to the world at large, 
could be obsequious enough where " thrift would follow 
fawning." In such a case he would emulate the ser- 
vile conduct of his prototype in the " Loving Bal- 
lad":— 

" O avay and avay vent the Proud Young Porter 

Oh, avay and avay and avay vent he, 
Until he came to Lord Bateman's chamber, 

Ven he vent down on his bended knee." 

• That is just what your Proud Young Porter invariably 
does, when anything is to be gained by sycophancy. 
Another and very odious sort of the Porter is himself a 
journalist, who not only cannot find merit in any work 
of art, be it play, poem, or picture, submitted to his 
judgment, but holds in the most insolent scorn anybody 
else who does. For the members of his own profession 
he cherishes sentiments of the most rancorous con- 
tempt, affecting to regard them one and all as dunces. 
He is great upon the decay of critics, little dreaming 
that he furnishes in his own person the most .egregious 
example of the truth of his theory. The Proud Young 
Porter of commerce is never to be looked for in the 
ranks of the Prince Merchants who have contributed so 
largely to the greatness and glory of England. He is 
the veriest mushroom. " A self-made man " is he, as 
he delights to tell you with a conceited chuckle, though 
goodness knows he has but scant cause to be vain of 
the manufacture. With him the amount of a man's 
money is the measure of his moral worth, and to be 



56 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

respectable simply means to be rich. He has no end 
of cash, but he is badly off for /i's, poor fellow, and the 
flocks that graze the plain know quite as much as he 
about the works of William Shakespeare. In fact, a 
book is about as interesting to this Proud Young Porter 
as is a chronometer to a cow. I know a splendid speci- 
men of this City Porter — a broker, who rose from nothing, 
and cannot be said to have reached much higher, though 
he is wallowing in money. But, oh ! what airs he takes 
upon himself, and what a Proud Young Porter he is, to 
be sure, as he loafs along the street, with his glossy hat 
and a huge posy in his button-hole ! He is " dying of 
dignity," as Dr. Arnold said of the Church of England ; 
but you might put his wit, learning, and refinement in 
your eye, and you would see none the worse for them. 
Then, again, there is the Proud Young Porter of the 
Bar, who talks about " the other branch of the profes : 
sion," meaning the solicitors, pretty much in the tone 
in which the Turks of old, after classing all living crea- 
tures except swine in one category, alluded to the pig 
as " that other animal." But this Proud Young Porter 
changes his tune in the presence of a solicitor, and 
invariably behaves towards him with elaborate polite- 
ness. What can the reason be ? But of all the Proud 
Young, Porters going, save, O save me from a saint ! 
When your Proud Young Porter, stiff with the starch of 
sanctity, emerges from his conventicle, look out for 
snubs, ye unregenerate ! He is strong in faith, that 
Plymouth Brother, or that most particular of Particular 
Baptists, but he is weak in charity, so look out ! 

These and all other varieties of the Proud Young 
Porter are pests to society. Zounds ! Do they never 
think of their own shortcomings, and the mortal condi- 



PROUD YOUNG PORTERS. 57 

tion of their earthly estate ? Who are they, that they 
should presume to treat with disdain any human being 
on earth ? They would do well to bear in mind the 
words of an American satirist : — " Great men never 
swell. It is only your three-cent individuals who are 
salaried at the rate of $200 a-year, and dine on pota- 
toes and fried herrings, who put on airs and flashy waist- 
coats, swell, puff, blow, and endeavor to give themselves 
a consequential appearance." No discriminating person 
need mistake the spurious for the genuine article. The 
difference between the two is as that between a barrel 
of vinegar and a bottle of the pure juice of the grape. 
And what a magnificent passage is this from the writ- 
ings of Sydney Smith, in whose presence your Proud 
Young Porter of whatever class would have been un- 
worthy to stand ! — " Take some quiet, sober moment of 
life, and add together the two ideas of pride and man ; 
behold him, creature of a span high, stalking through 
infinite space in all the grandeur of littleness. Perched 
on a speck of the universe, every wind of heaven strikes 
into his blood the coldness of death ; his soul floats 
from his body like melody from the string * day and 
night, as dust on the wheel,- he is rolled along the 
heavens through a labyrinth of worlds, and all the 
creations of God are flaming above and beneath. Is 
this a creature to make for himself a crown of glory, to 
deny his own flesh, to mock at his fellow, sprung from 
that dust to which both will soon return ? Does the 
proud man not err ? Does he not suffer ? Does he not 
die ? When he reasons, is he never stopped by difficul- 
ties ? When he acts, is he never tempted by pleasure ? 
When he lives, is he free from pain ? ■ When he dies, 
can he escape the common grave ? Pride is not the 



58 ERRA TIC ESS A VS. 

heritage of man ; humility should dwell with frailty, 
and atone for ignorance, error, and imperfection." 
Well said ! well said ! thou glorious philosopher ! 
Whose cheek does not flush the crimsoner, whose eye 
does not flash the brighter, whose heart does not beat 
the quicker for thine inspired words ? There is one 
man, and one only, who would not be touched by such 
an appeal. • And who is he ? The Proud Young 
Porter. For him alone was the world created, for him 
alone, poor booby of an hour, do sun, moon, and stars 
shed their light upon this gorgeous world : — 

" Ask for whose end the heavenly bodies shine ? 
Earth, for whose use ? Pride answers, ' 'Tis for mine. 
For me, kind Nature wakes her genial power, 
Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower. 
Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew, 
The juice nectarious and the balmy dew ; 
For me the mine a thousand treasures brings, 
For me health gushes from a thousand springs ; 
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise, 
My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.' " 

All, all for the Proud Young Porter ! Alas ! and 
a-well-a-day, he is, for all his pride, the veriest gnat in 
all creation ! How little knows he of true glory ! how 
little of manhood worthy of the name ! We may safely 
say that " always and everywhere true genius is ever 
modest, real superiority is always generous, and genuine 
science is at all times just." Of this, at all events, you 
may rest confidently assured, that no Proud Young 
Porter was ever yet a gentleman. 



THE ABSURDITY OF GOING OUT OF TOWN. 



59 



THE ABS URDITY OF GOING O UT OF TO WN. 

'T^HERE is but one thing more absurd than staying 
in town, and that is going into the country. Man, 
to be sure, is everywhere, and always a ridiculous 
object, and under whatsoever conditions of destiny, 
whether civic or rural, cannot fail to afford matter of 
derision to the animals whom he has the insolence to 
call the " lower." But then there are degrees in absur- 
dity, as in all other things ; and ludicrous though a man 
may be in Marylebone, he is a hundred-fold more so 
at Margate. In London, life is doubtless very nonsen- 
sical, but in certain of its phases it is nevertheless very 
enjoyable ; whereas in the country it is outrageously 
preposterous, without being in any sense pleasant. 
Indeed, the longer one lives the more one must admire 
the philosophic reflection of Sir Charles Morgan, who, 
having spent half an hour in a village, confessed his 
inability to understand why people should live in the 
country when they might die so much more cheaply in 
London. It is lamentable to think what opportunities 
of happiness are discarded and what occasions of dis- 
comfort are invited by the people who, in compliance 
with an idiotic fashion, fly out of London, as though it 
were on fire, during the months of August and Septem- 
ber. Inverting the order of the seasons as laid down 
by Dr. Johnson, we may rest assured (but we won't) 
that London is the best place in winter and the only 
place in summer. Indeed, delightful as is the Village 



6o ERRATIC ESSAYS. 

on the Thames in the former period, it is incalculably- 
more so in%the latter. London in summer-time abounds 
in sights and sounds the most gratifying and ennobling 
that can be imagined. 

• 

" One impulse from a vernal wood 

May teach you more of man, 
Of human evil and of good, 

Than all the sages can." 

So spake William Wordsworth, but don't believe a 
word of it. Say rather : — 

" One impulse from a chimney-pot 

Will teach you more of man, 
Of what you've learned and what forgot, 

Than all that Wordsworth can." 

The affinity between a chimney and humanity is re- 
markable. A good fellow is called in the slang of the 
day, a "brick." A chimney is made of bricks. A 
man's hat is commonly known as a "tile" and a 
" chimney-pot ; " and as for the fumes that issue from 
the flue, they teach the most truthful of all lessons, — 
Gloria mundifumus, the glory of the world is smoke. 
So passeth it away. How any person having the faint- 
est pretensions to sanity, not to say taste, can prefer a 
flower to a paving-sto/ie, a river to a sewer, or a tree to 
a chimney-pot, is one of those mysteries which deride 
human comprehension, and demonstrate the contempti- 
ble insignificance of mind. A tree is the most servile 
of living things, meanly obsequious to every wind that 
blows, the veriest creature of the climate, which withers 
or smashes it according to the caprice of the moment \ 
whereas a chimney-pot defies the elements, sways 
neither to the right nor to the left, but maintains a posi- 



THE ABSURDITY OF GOING OUT OF TO WN. 6 1 

tion of majestic rigidity, like a good man in adversity, 
and like that same individual, emits volumes of beauti- 
ful smoke, which, curling gracefully aloft, come into 
picturesque contrast with the less lovely clouds that 
drape the azure sky. Then, again, consider the pave- 
ments you walk upon in London, how warm and com- 
fortable they are to the feet, like stoved blankets or 
baked bricks. How unlike the horrid footpaths in the 
country, with their flinty knobs and rigid inequalities, 
which knock your boots to pieces, torture your corns, 
and make painful indentation in the soles of your feet ! 
In London during the noon-tide of a summer-day, you 
seem to be treading amid smouldering ashes or upon 
the smooth, scorching surface of a subterranean oven ; 
and what can be nicer ? If, at the same time that you 
pursue your course thus luxuriously, the fumes of hot 
asphalte salute your nose, while the sunshine is blister- 
ing the nape of your neck, your condition is ineffably 
blissful. Indeed, the play of sunbeams upon various 
objects in the great metropolis is something so magnif- 
icent, as to be beyond all power of description. One 
loves to see them dancing upon the helmets of those 
blue-coated darlings, the policemen, glancing upon their 
brilliant buttons, and lighting up their heroic faces 
with a beauty not of this world. In the full blaze of 
summer sunshine, the lovely red pillar boxes, erected 
by the Post-Ofhce authorities for the express purpose 
of frightening nervous horses, look redder and lovelier 
than ever. But, oh ! what language can describe the 
effulgence of the green putrid water tossed up by the 
fountains in Trafalgar Square, when the golden rays 
are reflected and refracted with dazzling splendor upon 
the rotten flood ! Where can you see anything like 



62 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

that in the country? Ah! where, indeed? When to 
the fragrant perfumes exhaled from these matchless 
fountains are added the refreshing odors from the sew- 
ers, and from the excavations made in the streets by 
the gas-fitters, the result is such a compound of ex- 
quisite smells as is not to be paralleled upon the spicy 
shores of India, or amid the aromatic mountains of 
Araby the Blest. Then, again, what a charming place 
is Euston Square ! and where else on earth could a 
man fond of the picturesque and beautiful hope to 
spend a summer day so delightfully ? But no j I am 
wrong. There is in London one lovelier place than 
Euston Square — the Underground Railway. Talk of 
scenery ! What scenery on earth is comparable to that 
of the Underground Railway ? Oh ! lost to virtue, lost 
to manly thought ! who would surrender such a pros- 
pect for a heather-clad mountain in Scotland, or the 
dash of foaming billows upon the yellow sands of 
Tenby or Lowestoft ? Yet as surely as autumn comes 
round, we find Londoners expressing their disgust of 
their paradise, and longing for a " change." They want 
to look at something green. What stuff ! Can they 
not survey their own images in the glass, and rejoice in 
the verdant prospect, without going to the trouble and 
expense of a month in the Highlands, or upon the 
shores of the melancholy main ? One of the happiest 
men I ever knew used to spend his holiday upon 
Waterloo Bridge. For my own part, I had solemnly re- 
solved to retire this summer to Wapping for a fort- 
night, by way of variety, and should infallibly have 
done so had not the swimming mania set in with such 
frenzy. To see ladies buffeted about in the filthy 
waters of the River Thames, while " doing a swim " for 



THE ABSURD1 TY OF GOING O UT OF TO WN. 63 

a wager from London Bridge to Greenwich Pier, would 
have been too much for my delicate nerves. The shock 
to my sensibilities would have been so severe as to de- 
stroy all the pleasure I should otherwise have derived 
from a visit to a place for ever sacred and beloved. 
Yes, Wapping is indeed a charming spot, and the man 
who cannot make himself happy there would be un- 
comfortable in Arcadia. Another delightful summer 
place is Poplar. Its very name calls to mind an ex- 
quisite jeu de mots. " My dear," said a bridegroom 
once to his charmer, " this is Poplar, and when you 
(' u ') are there it will be popz/lar ; and if we both re- 
side there long, it will be populous." A smile broke 
over the lady's face like sunshine over a lake, and she 
heaved a pensive sigh. The gentleman simply winked. 
His words have come true. How strange to think that 
the pleasures of Poplar, the sweets of Shadwell, the 
witcheries of Wapping, the pomps of Piccadilly and 
Pall Mall, the charms of Charing Cross, and the blisses 
of Belgravia should all alfke be wantonly surrendered 
in August and September, for the vulgar uproar and.in- 
tolerable ennui of some wretched watering-place qr an- 
other upon the coasts of Kent or Sussex! Compare 
the tedium of a sea-side resort with the glorious excite- 
ment of running away from mad bulls on market-days 
in the streets of London ! But of all the losses sus- 
tained by the infatuated lunatics who are content to ex- 
change the intellectual pleasures and aesthetic delights 
of London in summer for the stagnation and stupidity 
of the country, the most grievous by far is the loss of 
the Polytechnic Diving-Bell. That bell is voiceless, 
yet doth it recall to memory all that is most tender and 
romantic, most lovely and pathetic in human life. The 



64 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

number of male arms which have found their way 
around female waists within the dome of that bell is a 
matter which well deserves the attention of the Statis- 
tical Society. It was while going down in that blessed 
bell that Belinda Anne promised to be mine. It was 
while coming up in that blessed bell that Belinda Anne, 
fairest and most faithless of her sex, changed her mind, 
and declared that she meant to be another's. I am not 
sorry. To go up and down in the Polytechnic Diving- 
Bell, the only true marriage-bell, is simply the most ec- 
static delight of which human nature is capable, but 
how may you hope to enjoy that delight when you are 
pacing to and fro on that wretched pier at Margate, or 
eating loose sand by the bushel upon the hideous sea- 
board of Herne Bay ? It is not likely. 



THE PLEASURE OF LYING IN BED. 

TT is lamentable to think what mad enterprises people 
will undertake, and what inhospitable regions they 
will penetrate, in the wild-goose chase after happiness. 
They will roam ail the world over, from Polar Star to 
Southern Cross ; they will freeze with the shivering 
Laplanders, or pant with the sunburnt Moors ; they 
will climb the loftiest mountains, or plunge into deep- 
est abysses of the ocean ; they will encounter the dead- 
liest perils, and endure the most horrible hardships, all 
in pursuit of the same splendid phantom. For this do 
men give themselves up, some to war, some to wine, 
" other some " to women. Meanwhile, they one and all 



THE PLEASURE OF L YING IN BED. 65 

neglect to seek happiness where alone it is to be 
found — in bed. It is as though a man should look 
around for his spectacles, while they are on his nose. 
There is but one place beneath either sun or moon 
where dwell perfect peace and genuine comfort, and 
that place is bed. I have always thought so, and the 
longer I live the more profound becomes my conviction 
of the fact. I could not have been more than sixteen 
years of age when I penned these delightful verses : — 

" Never get up ! 'Tis the secret of glory, 

Nothing so true can philosophy preach. 
Think of the names that are famous in story, — 

' Never get up ' is the lesson they teach. 
How have men compassed immortal achievements ? 

How have they moulded the world to their will ? 
'Tis that mid sorrows, and threats, and bereavements, 

' Never get up ' was their principle still ! "* 

An old friend of mine caught hold of these lines before 
I had time to publish them, and substituted " Never 
give up " for " Never get up," and in that ignoble form 
they have been invariably printed, to the manifest in- 
jury of common-sense and public morals. Be it under- 
stood that I wrote "get," and that "give" is a false 
reading. Why should you get up? You are much 
warmer, much cosier, and much safer in bed. If you 
get up, the chances are as a thousand to one you will 
go out ; and then consider what risks you incur. You 
may catch cold, meet a dun, hear a street preacher, see 
Mr. Whalley, be run over by an omnibus if you walk, or 
be run away with by your horse if you ride, or a chim- 
ney-pot may fall on your head, or a young woman may 
take a fancy to you and insist upon marrying you, and 
what then is to become of you ? There is no knowing 
5 



66 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

what misadventures may befall you if you get up ; 
whereas you are perfectly secure, and out of all harm's 
way as long as you remain in bed. Who ever heard of 
a man catching a cold, or a black-eye, or of his having 
his head punched, or of his being knocked down by a 
Pickford van, or any other description of vehicle, while 
he was in bed ? It is absurd, upon the face . of it. 
Depend upon it, bed is the head-quarters of human 
felicity, the stronghold of security, the sole seat and 
centre of tranquillity and delight, and the man who 
is not comfortable in bed — always assuming that he 
is in good health — may as well surrender all hope of 
comfort, for he has no prospect of it anywhere else on 
earth. 

The nonsense that has been written on the subject 
of early rising might provoke the patience of a saint. 
An old proverb assures us that " early to bed and early 
to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." The 
first half of the adage is true enough, the last is an utter 
delusion. " Early to bed" will doubtless be of essential 
service to you in mind, body, and estate ; but as for 
" early to rise," it means, in three short words, all that 
is most pernicious and most preposterous in the course 
of your earthly career. The witty little schoolboy who, 
on being reminded by his father that the early bird 
gets the worm, replied that the fate of the worm was an 
awful example of the folly of being up too soon, brained 
a delusion at a blow, and in so doing established his 
claim to be ranked among the benefactors of his race. 
To lie down with the lamb is enchanting, but to rise 
with the lark is something too dreadful to think of. 
What is the use of being a man, if you are to act like a 
lark ?— 






THE PLEASURE OF LYING IN BED. 67 

" Rise before the sun 
And make a breakfast of the morning dew, 
Served up by Mature on some grassy hill, — 
You'll find it nectar ! " 

What rubbish ! Picture to yourself the lunacy of the 
man who, instead of lingering luxuriously in the blank- 
.ets till the latest possible moment, and then feasting on 
congou or mocha, new-laid eggs, cold partridge, and 
buttered toast, would get up before daybreak, and, going 
out into the cold raw air, take his stand upon the top 
of a hill, beneath a sullen grey sky, with the bleak 
winds blowing all around him, and, perhaps, the rain 
coming down in torrents, there j:o breakfast on morning 
dew served up by nature ! Such a fellow ought to be 
locked up for a maniac, unfit to be at large. Not that 
I " go in " for breakfasting in bed. It is a lazy, ignoble 
habit. A man ought to divide his life fairly between 
bed and board, oscillating between both, on the prin- 
ciple of the old French maxim, " Du lit a la table, de la 
table au lit." This is a fair division of enjoyments. 
When you are not at table you ought to be in bed, and 
vice versa. No one with a particle of self-respect would 
take his meals in bed. The proper plan is this. Re- 
tire at a reasonable hour, say, nine o'clock, at the latest. 
Read for three or four hours in bed, but be sure that 
you do read. Don't nod, after the fashion of the great 
Homer. Nothing can be so dangerous as not reading 
in bed. As long as you can read in bed all will be 
well; but the moment you give up reading, and fall 
asleep, you are in danger of setting the curtains, and 
possibly the house, on fire. I knew a fellow once who 
did both through not reading in bed. Put out your 
candle about twelve o'clock, and surrender yourself 



68 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

body and soul to the empire of Morpheus. Sleep, and 
that profoundly, until ten o'clock the next morning. 

I need hardly say that you must not lie upon a feath- 
er-bed. It is an abomination. No man worthy of the 
name would recline upon a feather-bed. To do so were 
to be guilty of unpardonable effeminacy. Moreover, of 
all beds in the world, it is the most uncomfortable. It 
is so full of hills and hollows that you never know 
where you are. A hair mattrass is the only bed fit for a 
human being. Very well, then ; as the clock strikes 
ten, you spring from your mattrass into your tub. And 
mind that the water is cold. If there be ice on the 
surface, what of that ? Smash it with your heel. Scorn 
the Sybarite who would put a drop of warm water into 
the freezing flood. Having tubbed, adjourn to your 
breakfast-room, and partake of a hearty meal. Then go 
to bed again (it will have been " made " in the interim), 
taking with you a song-book and a pipe. Spend the 
day alternately in singing, at the top of your voice, 
smoking like a chimney, and sleeping like a sea- 
calf, until the clock strikes seven. At that precise 
moment get up and dress for dinner. Having devoted 
a couple of hours to dining and " desserting," light your 
•flat candlestick, and off with you to bed again, there to 
tarry, waking or sleeping, for thirteen consecutive hours. 
Thus will you lead a life as honorable to yourself as 
serviceable to your fellow-creatures. It is just the 
sort of existence I shoulol pass, but that " Circumstance, 
— that unspiritual god and mis-creator," — unfortunately 
forbids. 

It is humiliating and harrowing to read the story of 
the miseries some men have endured through their 
inability to appreciate the luxuries of bed. We are 



THE PLEASURE OF L YING IN BED. 69 

assured that it was the delight of Burns to wander alone 
upon the banks of the Ayr — whose stream, thanks to 
him, is now immortal — and to listen to the song of the 
blackbird at the close of the summer's day. But still 
greater was his pleasure, as he himself informs us, in 
walking on the sheltered side of a wood, on a cloudy 
winter day, and hearing the storm rave among the 
trees ; and more elevated still, his delight to ascend 
some eminence during the agitations of nature, to stride 
along its summit while the lightning flashed around 
him, and amid the howlings of the tempest to apostro- 
phize the spirit of the storm. What stuff and nonsense, 
to be sure ! Better by half for him to have been in 
bed, poor fellow ! For my own part, I never see my 
fellow-creatures intent on any pursuit, whether of busi- 
ness or of pleasure, without thinking what a pity it is 
that they are not all in bed. If people could only be 
brought to understand the dignity and delight of hori- 
zontal refreshment, they would not bother their heads 
about dancing, rinking, cricketing, boating, fishing, 
shooting, swimming, riding, or any other of those frivo- 
lous " recreations " wherewith they are wont to exhaust 
and debase their natures. See what mischief is done 
when rivers leave their beds ! The consequences are 
hardly less calamitous when men pursue the like course. 
There was a time when I was passionately fond of rid- 
ing. I think I can say with a safe conscience that I 
have been upon my head in as many hunting-fields as 
Messrs. Moody and Sankey have fingers and toes, but 
I have lived to see the absurdity of such pursuits. Any 
one may have the pig-skin for me now. Give me a 
warm, cosy bed, a hard mattrass, as before observed, a 
spring paillasse, fleecy blankets, snowy sheets and a 



yo 



ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 



down pillow ; and anybody who prefers the bleak cover- 
side, " southerly " winds, and a cloudy morning in De- 
cember, is welcome to them for me. The merriest " view 
halloo " that ever made the welkin ring, and struck 
terror into the heart of Reynard, should not divorce 
me from my pillow. And talking of pillows, what a 
sweet, soothing sound there is in the very word, and 
how suggestive it is of suavity and repose ! No sooner 
has he laid his head upon his pillow, than a good man 
forgives his enemies, and consigns to soft oblivion the 
sorrows and solicitudes of the day. " Once upon a 
time," says Lord Bacon, in his own quaint, dry fashion, 
" a merchant died that was very far in debt. His 
goods and household stuff were set forth to sale. A 
stranger would needs buy a pillow there, saying, ' This 
pillow, sure, is good to sleep on, since he could sleep 
on it that owed so many debts.' " Just so ; I protest I 
don't care a jackstraw what I owe % the instant I press 
my pillow. Yet there are noodles who prate about the 
advantages of early rising, and tell us how much we 
lose by not getting up sooner ! Early rising involves 
the loss of the dearest blessing that Heaven ever be- 
stowed upon man, — " sleep that knits up the ravelled 
sleeve of care ; the birth of each day's life, sore labor's 
bath, balm of hurt minds ; great nature's second 
course ; chief nourisher in life's feast." That is what 
sleep is, and that is what we are called upon to resign 
for the privilege of mooning about at cock-crow, and 
possibly knocking up against our creditors on their 
way from their suburban villas to their shops. I don't 
see it. Then, again, there are people who would 
resent any imputation upon their sanity, yet do not 
hesitate to aver that they would rather be at the play 



FOPS AND FOPPERY. f X 

tnan in bed. Alas, my heart ! I went to the theatre 
the other night to see Macbeth, Thane of Cawdor, in 
the character of Mr. * * * and I will do Macbeth 
the justice to say that he played the part to perfection. 
The assumed character shone through the actor's own 
individuality, like a lamp through a lighted alabaster 
vase. Yet am I fain to confess that I felt tired — oh ! 
how tired — ere yet the play was half over ; and when 
Lady Macbeth, coming on with a bedroom candlestick 
in her hand, exclaimed, " To bed ! to bed ! " — " Sweetest 
of ladies," quoth I, " I will e'en take you at your word ; " 
and so saying, I snatched up my hat^ walked out of 
the house, and made for my bed with all possible ex- 
pedition. 



. FOPS AND FOPPER Y. 

TT is honorably significant of the progress of civiliza- 
tion that foppery is everywhere disappearing. 
Fops by whatever phrase designated, whether as 
" fops " proper, " beaux," " macaronis," " sparks," 
"dandies," "bucks," "petits maitres" "Bond Street 
loungers," " exquisites," or " Corinthians," have well- 
nigh vanished from the world. Their very names 
have become enigmatic. To trace from age to age 
through all its phases of development the history of 
these popinjays of fashion were a task not unworthy of 
satirist or philosopher. It would be interesting to ob- 
serve the grotesque inspirations of folly as illustrated 
in the careers of her most fantastic votaries. If not 



7 2 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

more virtuous, we are certainly of graver deportment 
than our fathers, and there is hardly a man of sense 
among us who will not say with Shakespeare in The 
Merchant of Venice, "Let not the sound of shallow fop- 
pery enter my sober house." The fop of the Eliza- 
bethan era is doubtless typified accurately in the 
person of Osrick. How pungently does Hamlet satir- 
ize the "waterfly," and how amusingly does he mimic 
his mincing mode of speech ! " To divide him inven- 
torially would dizzy the arithmetic of memory, and yet 
but saw neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in 
the verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of 
great article, and his infusion of such dearth and rare- 
ness as to make true diction of him. His semblable is 
his mirror, and, who else would trace him, his umbrage 
nothing more." This crabbed English is a sarcastic 
skit upon the affected phraseology of men who aped 
ton in Shakespeare's time. In Hudibras we find men- 
tion of a creature known as a " fopdoodle." " You 
have been roaming," says Butler, 

" Where sturdy butchers broke your noddle, 
And handled you like a fopdoodle." 

The " fopdoodle " now exists only in the dictionary. 
He is no great loss, for his name was sufficiently ex- 
pressive of his silliness. The fop had a long reign, 
and figures prominently in the literature of the last 
two centuries. In the old play of The Magnetic Lady, 
his qualities are summed up with delicate precision. He 
is pictured as 

" A courtier extraordinary, who by diet 
Of meats and drinks, his temperate exercise, 
Choice music, frequent bath, his horary shifts 



FOPS AND FOPPERY. 73 

Of shirts and waistcoats, means to immortalize 
Mortality itself, and makes the essence 
Of his whole happiness the trim of curls." 

Swift, who seldom lost an opportunity of expressing 
his contempt for the sex which he used so* vilely, is 
particularly severe upon women for their partiality for 
fools, fops and rakes : — 

" In a dull stream which moving slow, 
You hardly see the current flow, 
When a small breeze obstructs the course, 
It whirls about for want of force j 
And in its narrow circle gathers 
Nothing but chaff, afid straws, and feathers. 
The current of a female mind 
Stops thus and turns with every wind, 
Thus whirling round together draws 
Fools, fops, and rakes for chaff and straws." 



Covent Garden would appear to have been the favor- 
ite place of rendezvous for fops in the time of Dryden, 
who observes that " farce scribblers make use of the 
noble invention of laughter to entertain citizens, country 
gentlemen, and Covent Garden fops." 

The •*' Sparks " were in great force even in the time of 
Dr. Johnson, who describes them as " lively, showy, 
splendid gay men." They were of respectable antiquity, 
hailing probably from the days of the Restoration, when 
the nation expressed in costume, as in all things else, 
its wild delight at being emancipated from the grim 
bondage of Puritanism. The "beau," whom Johnson 
defined as " a man of dress — a man whose great care is 
to deck his person," flourished most luxuriantly in the 
last century. His was the sumptuous age of powder 



74 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

and patches. He was especially dainty in the matters 
of sword-knots, shoe-buckles, and lace ruffles. He was 
ablaze with jewelry, took snuff with an incomparable 
air out of a box studded with diamonds, and excelled 
in the " rfice conduct of a clouded cane." Age brought 
him no wisdom, but, on the contrary, rather served to 
give to his folly a more poignant aroma. He culminat- 
ed into some such personage as Lord Ogilby in The 
Clandestine Marriage. It has been observed with some 
touch of wit that a beau dressed out resembled the cinna- 
mon tree, the bark being of greater value than the body. 
The word "macaroni" as applied to a fop, is of curious 
origin. In its primary signification it means a kind of 
paste meat boiled in broth, and dressed with butter, 
cheese, and spice. How it came to be used for the 
designation of drolls and fools is explained by Addison 
in the Spectator. " There is a set of merry drolls whom 
the common people of all countries admire and seem to 
love so well that they could eat them, according to the 
old proverb ; I mean those circumforaneous wits whom 
every nation calls by the name of that dish of meat 
which it loves best. In Holland they are termed ' pick- 
led herrings,' in France ' Jean Potages] in Italy ' mac- 
aronis] and in Great Britain 'Jack Puddings.".' The 
transference of the word from fools and clowns to men 
of fantastic refinement and exaggerated elegance is a 
singular circumstance, of which philologists have not as 
yet given a satisfactory explanation. That the phrase 
did undergo that strange metamorphosis of meaning is 
beyond all question. Sir Benjamin Backbite, in The 
School for Scandal, applies the word to horses of a 
good breed, as distinguished from those of inferior lin- 
eage :— 



FOPS AND FOPPERY. 75 

" Sure never were seen two such beautiful ponies, 
Other horses are clowns, but these macaronis ; 
To give them this title I'm sure can't be wrong, 
Their legs are so slim and their tails are so long." 

The human Macaronis had a pleasant time of it, but 
they were eventually supplanted by the " Dandies," who 
for several generations bore supreme sway in the realm 
of fantastic fashion. " Dandy " is traced by etymologists 
through " Jack-a-dandy," of which it is an abbreviation, 
to the French word " dandin ; " but some grammarians 
are of opinion that the English term is borrowed from a 
very small coin of Henry VII. 's time, called a " dandi- 
prat." Be this as it may, the " dandies " were for many 
a long year potentates whose influence was far too great 
to be measured by any coin, much less a dandiprat. 
They were probably at their prime in the days of the 
Regency, which epoch, however, they long survived. 
Lord Byron confesses to a predilection for them. " I 
like the dandies," he says, " they were always very civil 
to me ; though in general they disliked literary people, 
and persecuted and mystified Madame de Stael, Lewis, 
Horace Twiss, and the like. The truth is that, though 
I gave up the business early, I had a tinge of dandyism 
in my minority, and probably retained enough of it to 
conciliate the great ones at four-and-twenty." Lord 
Glenbervie foreshadowed the fall of the dandies, and 
luxuriated in the anticipation : — " The expressions 'blue- 
stocking ' and ' dandy ' may furnish matter for the learn- 
ing of commentators at some future period. At this 
moment every English reader will understand them. 
Our present ephemeral dandy is akin to the Macaroni 
of my earlier days. The first of those expressions has 
become classical, by Mrs. Hannah More's poem of ' Bas 



y6 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

Bleu] and the other by the use of it in one of Lord 
Byron's poems. Though now become familiar and trite, 
their day may not be long — Cadentque qua nunc sunt in 
honore vocabula." But the dandies saw Lord Glenbervie 
down, and lived to come in for Mr. Carlyle's rugged 
denunciations. "Touching Dandies," writes the Sartor 
Resartus, " let us consider, with some scientific strict- 
ness, what a dandy specially is. A dandy is a clothes- 
wearing man — a man whose trade, office, and existence 
consist in the wearing of clothes. Every faculty of his 
soul, spirit, purse, and person, is heroically consecrated 
to this one object, — the wearing of clothes wisely and 
well ; so that as others dress to live, he lives to dress. 
The all importance of clothes has sprung up in the in- 
tellect of the dandy, without effort, like an instinct of 
genius : he is inspired with cloth, a poet of cloth. A 
divine idea of cloth is born with him." Still more severe 
is this epigram : — 

" A Dandy is a thing that would 
Be a young lady if it could, 
But as it can't, does all it can 
To show the world it's not a man." 

To the Dandies succeeded the " Exquisites " and the 
" Loungers ; " lady-killers all, who laid themselves out 
ostentatiously for female conquest and broke women's 
hearts like china-ware. They talked, walked, danced, 
did everything in a style of their own ; and their motto 
was " look and die ! " After these came fops of a ruder, 
more adventurous type known as " Corinthians," the 
" fastest " of " fast " men, who delighted in street broils, 
and such riotous achievements as are depicted in Tom 
and Jerry. They, too, have had their day. " Corin- 



FOPS AND FOPPERY. ^ 

thianism " and " Dandyism " are alike as dead as a door- 
nail. Practical joking is now but another name for 
ruffianism, and your fast man is voted a " cad." No 
one now-a-days apes excessive finery in dress, or seeks 
to attract notice by any startling peculiarity of tnise or 
carriage. Every one in decent circumstances, and hav- 
ing any pretence to the conventional designation of " a 
gentleman," dresses well but quietly. Anything outre 
in his attire would provoke a sneer. Anything " loud " 
is in bad form. Thanks to the Jews, — not to the better 
class of Hebrews, amongst whom may be found many ' 
well-bred people, but to the lower order of Jews with 
their pinchbeck chains, their flashy pins, and their 
boisterous display of gimcrack rings upon unwashed 
fingers, — Christians won't wear jewelry. A small 
"Albert," and possibly one ring of the simplest design, 
is, generally speaking, all the bijouterie that any man 
who has been baptized ever cares to carry. A disdain- 
ful tone in conversation, coupled with a certain affected 
silliness of observation, was once deemed essential, but 
it is so no longer. Sam Rogers met in his travels on 
the Continent an English lord, with more money than 
brains — Lord Maynard he was styled — who on some 
casual allusion being made to the House of Commons, 
stuck his glass in his eye and exclaimed haughtily, " The 
House of Commons ! Ah, yes ; I remember. Is that 
going on still ? " This stolid bit of patrician " hauteur" 
passed for a fine flash of wit at the time, but the man 
who would speak thus in our time would be written 
down an ass. Nor, indeed, is it to be wondered at, that 
Lord Maynard's title is extinct. Of the whole tribe of 
fops, the " Lady's Man " is now the sole survivor, and 
he becomes rarer every year. He will soon have utterly 



jS ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

disappeared, and the sooner the better, for of all the 
caricatures on humanity that ever encumbered the earth, 
the Lady's Man is assuredly the most contemptible. It 
is worthy of remark that to Pierce Egan, one of the 
trashiest of trashery writers, belongs the glory of 
having coined a word which has obtained universal cur- 
rency — the word " swell." The phrase, however, is no 
longer used in the sense in which Egan used it. It no 
longer serves to designate a pompous, pretentious fel- 
low, swelling into false consequence like the frog in the 
fable. Any decently-clad man of reputable position may 
now be called in slang phrase a " swell," which is simply 
the opposite of a " rough." There is nothing in com- 
mon between the swell and the fop. As for your " Snob," 
' he is simply an addle-headed creature, who meanly 
makes court to people of higher rank than his own. 
He reveres them and seeks to imitate them, not for their 
virtue or their talents, but because a nod from a lord is 
a breakfast for a fool. Of slaves and wretches such as 
these, we have, heaven knows, enough and to spare. 
Your " dandy " was bad enough, but your thorough-paced 
" snob," is incomparably worse. Your dandy, for all 
his fine airs and fantastic clothes, might be at heart a 
gentleman, and often was so ; but as for your " snob," 
he hardly deserves to be accounted a human being, 
much less a gentleman. Dandyism was bound to fall, 
for it was founded upon a fallacy — the fallacy that man- 
ners should be artificial, not natural. The very reverse 
is the fact. " Manners make the man." True, but 
they must be the manners of nature. Those of art un- 
make him. The heart is the fountain of courtesy, as of 
honor. All forms of civility springing elsewhere than 
from the heart are but shams — mean tricks of ceremony 



THE PLEASURES OF SILENCE. yg 

put on and off, like mere matters of personal decoration. 
He is truly courteous, and he alone, whose courtesy 
is the outcome of a genial, generous nature. Such a 
man may lack the requirements of etiquette, but never 
that benevolence whose external manifestation is a deli- 
cate regard for the feelings of others. Be his position 
in society what it may, that man is a " gentleman ; " 
than which there is no higher title. 



THE PLEASURES OF SILENCE. 

OUPPOSE we all make a solemn determination to 
^ hold our tongue ! Let us observe this rule as 
rigidly as possible, and you may depend upon it that 
such of us as shall live till this day twelve-month will 
have no cause to rue the resolve. Mr. Carlyle enjoys 
the credit which properly belongs to an old Eastern 
proverb-monger of having been the first to remark that 
speech is silver, but silence is gold. His queer idiom 
to be sure substitutes " silvern " for " silver " and 
"goldern" for "gold," but that is Carlylese, not 
English, so let it not pass. Say we rather that speech 
is silver, but silence is gold ; and let us lay the maxim 
to heart with the most sedulous attention. In our 
transactions with our fellow-creatures, let us one and all 
make a vow to pay in the more precious currency as< 
often as circumstances will permit. Beware of words ! 
Use them as little as you can. Nod, wink, shake your 
head, look wise, shrug your shoulders, make some 



g ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

significant gesture, but don't open your lips if you can 
at all avoid doing so. Never open your mouth for any 
other purpose than to put something in it. When you 
have nothing to say, say it ; and be sure to be in that 
condition as frequently as you can. The least said the 
soonest mended, and that which is uttered not at all 
will never need correction. What is the use of talking ? 
Anybody can talk ; but a faculty for silence is one of the 
rarest and most valuable of talents. " Much tongue 
and much judgment seldom go together," writes Sir 
Roger Lestrange, " for talking and thinking are two quite 
different faculties." So they are, Sir Roger, and the 
latter is by far the more estimable. " Vir sapit qui 
pauca loquitur" quoth the Eton Latin grammar — " he 
is a wise man who speaks little " — but how few there are 
who appear to be of that opinion ! Everybody wants to 
have his say, and when he has had it, it usually proves of 
little worth. I knew a pretty girl once, " whom fair be- 
fall in heaven 'mongst happy souls ! " She was the 
most taciturn of her sex. " My dear," said her mother 
to her one day, " why don't you speak ? If you don't 
talk, people will suspect you are a fool." " Mother," 
replied the maiden, " it is surely much better that people 
should merely suspect me to be a fool while I hold my 
tongue, than that they should know it for certain when 
I begin to talk." The old lady was, to speak in the 
argot of the day, " Shut up," and her daughter passed 
with all the hearers for what she was in truth — a damsel 
wise as beautiful. We have it upon the authority of the 
classic chroniclers that Ulysses was the most eloquent 
and the most silent of men ; " he knew that a word 
spoken never wrought so much good as a word con- 
cealed." Why are there so many wretched marriages 



THE PLEASURES OF SILENCE. Si 

in the world ? Simply because, when the Bride and 
Bridegroom were asked by the parson whether they 
would have the one the other for husband and wife, re- 
spectively, they said " Yes." If they had only held their 
peace and walked silently out of the church, there would 
have been no marriage and no misery. Why, oh ! why 
could they not have borne in mind the good old Scottish 
precept — " Keep your breath to cool your porridge." 
One brilliant flash of silence is worth all that Cicero or 
Demosthenes ever uttered. Give me the man who, 
while tongues are clacking all around him, looks straight 
down his nose, quaffs his wine plenteously, never stops 
the bottle, and utters not a word. He and he alone is 
your true philosopher. Babblers are fools to a man — 

" The coxcomb bird so talkative and grave 
That from his cage calls cuckold, thief, and knave, 
Though many a passenger he rightly call, 
You hold him no philosopher at all." 

Certainly not. He is but a " tongue-pad," as our 
forefathers were wont to say. It is my happiness to 
know a man who, after he has had a dinner-party at his 
house, and the guests are gone home, all except some 
four or five who know their cue to stay, addresses these 
choice spirits thus — " Come now, dear boys, let us enjoy 
ourselves. Light up ; draw your chairs round the fire ; 
and hold your tongues." They quietly obey. And there 
they sit in a dreamy delightful symposium, chewing the 
cud of sweet and bitter fancies, and wrapped in luxurious 
meditation till the clock chimes three, when each man 
shakes the other by the hand as at a Quaker's meeting, 
and putting on his hat hies homeward. Some of the 
happiest hours of my life have been spent under that 
6 



82 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

friend's roof. Nor, indeed, is that half a bad story that 
is told about a certain madman, who found himself at a 
ball, and though he opened not his lips appeared to 
enjoy himself amazingly. But nothing would induce 
him to take his departure until he had seen every other 
guest out of the house. When they had all gone, the 
mistress of the feast ventured to ask him why he had 
remained so long. " Well," said the lunatic, " I observed 
that still as each batch of visitors took their leave, those 
who remained behind had something ill-natured to say 
about them ; so I resolved to be the last to go, that there 
might be nobody left to backbite me." That witty maniac 
knew the value of silence ; and truly he had his reward. 
The ancients, who were in many particulars much wiser 
than we, set great store by silence, and deemed it so heaven- 
ly a gift that they placed it under the special tutelage of 
two of their most honored deities. Of all the Goddesses 
in the Grecian mythology, I have the profoundest rev- 
erence for Calypso, and of all the Gods for Harpo- 
crate's. They were the celestial Silentiaries of the classic 
divinities, and were always represented with the fore- 
finger of the right hand placed tranversely upon the 
lips. Calypso, to be sure, if we may trust " Telemachus," 
had a good deal to say for herself when she was jilted 
by the King of Ithaca ; but Fenelon, methinks, has more 
to answer for than she in the matter of her love-lorn 
lamentations. It was a profound idea that of making 
Harpocrates equally the God of Silence and of Light. 
" Not inaptly," writes the Epicurean, " doth the same 
deity preside over Silence and Light, since it is only out 
of the depths of contemplative silence that the great 
light of the soul — truth — can arise." In a like spirit 
speaks Emerson, " Let us be silent that we may hear 



THE PLEASURES OF SILENCE. S$ 

the whispers of the Gods." Euripides was wont to say 
that " silence was an answer to a wise man ; but we 
seem to have greater occasion for it in our dealings 
with fools and unreasonable persons, for men of breed- 
ing and sense will be satisfied with reason and fair 
words." So thinks Plutarch, who is rarely in the wrong. 
The sarcasm so frequently directed against women on 
account of their supposed loquacity, furnishes a striking 
exemplification of the unfair treatment which the fair, 
the only "fair " sex perpetually receive at the hands and 
tongues of their hereditary foe, man. I have known 
men by the score who could talk the hind-legs off an 
elephant, and who nevertheless seldom utter anything 
worth remembering, far better things going into their 
mouths than ever come out. In France you not unfre- 
quently meet with signs over inn-doors representing a 
woman without a head, and with the inscription beneath 
A la bonne femme ; as much as to say that when she has 
no head, and then alone, will she keep her peace. This, 
I dare say, is likewise the meaning of the " Silent 
Woman " at Chelmsford. It is a slander of common 
kin with that too true story about the young law-clerk 
who, being ordered to engross a deed commencing with 
the stereotyped words, " Know ye all men by these pre- 
sents," wrote instead, " Know thou one woman by these 
presents." His explanation was that it was all the 
same, for that if one woman knew it, all men would 
be sure to know it also. Was ever known such im- 
pertinence? And that boy lived to be the father 
of a family ! I know him well. Ah ! woman, woman, 
thou long-suffering martyr, when wilt thou turn upon 
thine arch enemy, Man, and slay him as he deserves 
to be slain ? It is worthy of remark that one of the 



84 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

most eloquent champions of silence was a woman— 
Madame Guyon, and it is, indeed, marvellous to think 
what a lot she has to say on such a topic. " There 
are," she observes, "three kinds of silence. Silence 
from words is good, because inordinate speaking tends 
to evil. Silence or rest from desires and passions, is 
still better, because it promotes quietness of spirit. But 
the best of all is silence from unnecessary and wander- 
ing thoughts, because that is essential to internal rec- 
ollection, and because it lays a foundation for a proper 
regulation and silence in other respects." And then 
she goes on to talk till all is blue about these different 
descriptions of silence. I was greatly delighted with an 
anecdote I read the other day in an American paper 
about a sweet silent girl, who, having been worried by 
her brother, uttered no word of complaint, heaved no 
sigh, fell into no sentimental sickness, dying at mid- 
summer when the flowers were in full bloom and all the 
birds in full song, but who quietly seized a rolling-pin 
and speechlessly dealt the naughty boy such a blow upon 
the head that he was unable to put his hat on for a 
month, so big was the lump she produced upon his skull/ 
" Silence is the perfectest Herald of joy," says Shakes- 
peare, and that darling girl must have felt the truth 
of the sentiment as she noiselessly brandished her 
rolling-pin above the devoted head of her offend- 
ing brother. In the music of silence there are a 
thousand varieties ; and not in the knowledge of 
things without, but in the perfection of the soul within, 
lies the true empire of man — and of woman as well. 
Nor are the charms of silence confined to the moral 
world. There is nothing in nature so eloquent, so im- 
pressive, so romantic as silence. What is it that gives 



THE PLEASURES OF SILENCE, 85 

to the sunset hour so magical an enchantment ? — what 
is it that gives to night so mystical a spell ? — what should 
it be but silence ? Milton's description of the first 
evening in Paradise is, indeed, sublime : — 

" Now is the pleasant time, 
The cool, the silent, save when the silence yields 
To the night-warbling bird." 

And what a matchless picture is this : — 

" Now* came still evening on, and twilight grey 
Had in her sober livery all things clad. 
Silence accompanied ; for beast and bird, 
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests 
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale ; 
She all night long her amorous descant sung. 
Silence was pleas'd ; now glow'd the firmament 
With living sapphires ; Hesperus, that led 
The starry host, rode brightest till the moon, 
Rising in clouded majesty, at length 
Apparent Queen, unveil'd her peerless light, 
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw." 

Silence is associated with all that is most touching 
and profound in devotional feeling. "An instinctive 
taste," says Coleridge, " teaches men to build their 
churches in flat countries with spire steeples, which, as 

/ they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with 

' silent finger to the sky and stars." 

Moore has some lovely lines about the river Moyle 
gliding placidly along, and the zephyrs which he entreats 
to " break not their chain of repose." Byron, too, is 
very eloquent on a similar theme describing with tender 
grace the gentle landscape where — 

" Not a breath crept through the rosy air, 
And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer." 



86 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

And as in the country, so too in the town, where the 
effect is quite as impressive though the mode of manifes- 
tation be dissimilar. To me there is a solemnity little 
less than awful in the aspect of the streets of Lon- 
don very late at night, when the myriad-tongued city is 
hushed for awhile in profound sleep. There is some- 
thing appalling in the imaginary contrast between the 
death-like stillness reigning all around, and the tur- 
bulence and confusion, the clash of vehicles, and the 
roar of traffic which will resound right and left when the 
streets shall swarm once more with busy denizens, and 
the seething sea of commerce shall roll tumultuous from 
Charing Cross to Tower Hill. I know of but one thing 
in the external world yet more impressive, and that is the 
contrast between the magnificent emotion of a tempest- 
fraught sea where wind and wave are striving for 
mastery, and the placid expression of the moon in the 
sable sky above, sailing benignantiy through silvery 
clouds, and looking so calm and gentle, while this little 
planet of ours is in such terrific coil. If we would 
be thought mild, meek and lovable, let us imitate the 
example of the moon not, indeed, in her discreditable 
practice of living upon borrowed silver, but rather in the 
noiselessness and serenity of her behavior. In other 
words let us hold our tongues. This much I do venture 
to offer by way of friendly counsel. " The rest is 
silence," quoth Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. 



VIS COMICA. 



VIS COMICA. 



87 



C\£ all our mental attributes that known as Vis 
^^ Comica is perhaps the most precious, because the 
most comforting and consolatory. That element of 
comedy, seldom wanting from the composition even of 
the most tragic natures, which enables a man in hours of 
depression to regard things from a ludicrous point 
of view, and to extract matter of merriment from his very 
misfortunes, is more valuable than the profoundest 
teachings of philosophy in qualifying him to endure 
with equanimity the troubles and tribulations of life. 
Thomas Hobbes, of Salisbury, said many a wise thing 
in his time, but never anything wiser or more beautiful 
than this : " Laughter is a sudden glory." So assuredly 
it is, and but for. this glory, which, splendid as sudden, 
bursts through our clouds of sorrow like sunshine in 
a shady place, what would become of us ? Liberius will 
have it that this privilege of laughter is of Olympian 
origin, and alike distinctive of gods and men. " Risus 
enimdivum atque hominum est cBtemavoluptas." Laughter 
is the everlasting delight of gods and men. To us sad 
sojourners in a sphere which the poets are wont to 
describe as a valley of tears, the right and the faculty to 
laugh are simply our dearest prerogative, our most 
indispensable possession. It is the fountain in our 
desert, the manna in our wilderness. " I have nothing 
for it," said Oliver Goldsmith, " but to sit down and 
laugh at the world and at myself, the most ridicu- 
lous object in it." Who cannot call to mind occasions 



88 ERRATIC ESSAYS. 

of difficulty and dejection when the Vis Cotnica has 
come triumphantly to his rescue ? Some persons are far 
more richly endowed than others with this happy gift, 
and the method of its manifestation in themselves and 
its effect upon others are among the most wonderful mys- 
teries of our being. Such people may be accounted the 
comedians of private life, and very pleasant and benef- 
icent is the mission they have to fulfil. Go where they 
may, they are ever welcome ; for, provided always that 
their matchless talent is refined by good taste and temper- 
ed by good feeling, they bring the summer with them and 
make everybody the brighter for their presence. It is 
marvellous to think what an atmosphere of fun seems to 
surround some people, what an air of festivity they 
throw around the dullest things, and what radiance of 
expression they impart to the most commonplace 
emotions. Like Ophelia, they turn " thought and afflic- 
tion to favor and to prettiness," and still as they go they 
"scatter smiles on the uneasy earth." We laugh at 
them, and with them, but never ill-naturedly so, for the 
mirth they awaken is ever genial and has no taint 
of malice. Do what they may, they never fail to exhila- 
rate and delight us. A wave of their hand, a glance of 
their eye, the slightest inflection of their voice, nay their 
very walk — though they should never open their lips 
— suffices to move our laughter. These are the people 
who, in right of their Vis Comica, acquire enthusiastic ap- 
plause for jests and stories of little intrinsic value. Told 
by them, jokes of no great point and anecdotes of 
no great interest will set the table in a roar. The worth- 
less matter wins mystic value in the nanatibn, and what 
from other lips would be dull and cold as lead is * • sun- 
shine spoken " from theirs. Lord Bacon has gone to 



VIS COMICA. 89 

the trouble to transmit to remote posterity a motoi King 
Jamie's, than which nothing can be much more silly : 
" King James, as he was a prince of great judgment, so 
was he a prince of marvellous pleasant humor. As he was 
going through Lusen by Greenwich he asked what town 
it was. They said Lusen. He asked, a good while 
after, ' What town is this we are now in ? ' They said 
still it was Lusen. Then said the King, ' I will be King 
of Lusen.' " The wit of that royal remark is rather 
occult. The King may perhaps have intended to say 
that the town being so long, he must needs be long 
a king who should hold the sovereignty of it. This may 
or may not be what Jamie meant ; but wit that requires 
to be analyzed and explained, hardly deserves the name. 
It should flash upon the fancy instantaneously as light 
upon the eye, else it is no true wit. " The marvellous 
pleasant humor " must have dwelt in the King's way of 
uttering the words ; and that humor is, of course, incom- 
municable by writing. Addison mentions his having 
met a fellow in Italy whose talk was of the dullest, 
" yet was there something so comical in his voice and 
gesture that a man could hardly forbear being pleased 
with him." Foote had a Vis Comica of his own, which 
being, even as he was himself, utterly brutal, came upon 
friend and foe like the kick of a dray-horse. Such, for 
example, was his truculent reply to the inoffensive little 
man who mildly remarked that he had come up from 
Essex — "The devil you have ! Who drove you ? " Sheri- 
dan's wit combined with the flash of the gem its solidity 
too, and was invariably free from gratuitous rancor. It 
was " more nearly allied to good-nature " than wit 
always is. Dean Swift's wit was usually like forked 
lightning, scathing and blasting what it touched ; but it 



go ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

was at times as mild as the moonbeams. It happened 
one day that his cook, whom he invariably called 
" Sweetheart," had greatly over-roasted the only joint he 
had for dinner. " Sweetheart," said the Dean in the 
blandest possible tones, " this leg of mutton is overdone. 
Take it back into the kitchen and do it less." The cook 
replied, that the thing was impossible. " But," said the 
Dean, " if it had been underdone you could have done 
it more." The cook assented. " Well, then, Sweet- 
heart," rejoined the master, "let this be a lesson to 
you. If you needs must commit a fault, at least take 
care it is one that will admit of a remedy." The 
mingled wit and wisdom of this admonition are delight- 
ful. The Vis Comica of Sydney Smith was magnificent. 
It must have been glorious in his conversation, for 
apart from the enchantment of delivery it is glorious in 
his writings. It foams and flashes through his graphic 
page like an exulting river through a picturesque 
landscape. It now and then occurred that he fell in with 
a dullard who failed to perceive at a glance the aim and 
purport of the canon's humor. This is a " damper " to 
most men, but Sydney Smith always turned it to good 
account. How very funny is this : " A joke goes a great 
way in the country. I have known one last pretty well for 
seven years. I remember making a joke after a 
meeting of the clergy in Yorkshire, where there was a 
Rev. Mr. Buckle, who never spoke when I proposed 
his health. I said he was a buckle without a tongue. 
Most persons on hearing laughed, but my next neighbor 
sat unmoved and sunk in thought. At last, a quarter of 
an hour after we had done, he suddenly nudged me, 
exclaiming, * I see now what you meant, Mr. Smith ; you 
meant a joke.' 'Yes,' I said, 'sir, I believe I did.' 



VIS COMICA. 



91 



Upon which he began laughing so heartily that I thought 
he would choke, and was obliged to pat him on the 
back." This ex post facto apprehension of fun, stealing 
sluggishly over a Bceotian intellect, but at last flaming out 
in uproarious mirth, has in it something exceedingly 
ridiculous. Equally comic is the canon's method of 
dealing with such witlings as take pleasure in charades. 
" I can say nothing of charades and such sort of unpar- 
donable trumpery. If charades are made at all, they 
should be made without benefit of clergy ; the offender 
should instantly be hurried off to execution, and be cut 
off in the middle of his dullness, despite his attempts to 
explain to his executioner why his first is like his second, 
or what is the resemblance between his fourth and his 
fifth." Who can forbear a smile at the notion of 
thus summarily ejecting the "funnyman" of a party, 
who even while he is being extruded desires to explain 
why his first is like his second, and what relation 
his fourth bears to his fifth ? Lord Palmerston had a 
racy and benignant Vis Comica which stood him in 
excellent stead on countless occasions, enabling him to 
turn the laugh against his adversaries, and to avert an 
awkward argument by means of a joke. Men will differ 
as to his qualifications as a statesman, but there can be 
no second opinion about his bonhomie, or about his right 
to rank with those 

" Whose happy alchemy of mind 
Can turn to pleasure all they find." 

Vis Comica no longer survives in its pristine vigor and 
brilliancy among the majority of comedians upon the 
British stage. We have a bright minority of good 
actors. Mr. Buckstone is an admirable comedian of a 



9 2 



ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 



good old school. Mr. Phelps, weak in tragedy, is strong 
in a comedy, which, though not unctuous, is life-like and 
of high finish. Mr. Sothern, one of the most brilliant 
and gentlemanlike of actors, has a vein of eccentric 
humor all his own. Mr. C. Mathews' acting in his palmy 
days was bright, fluent, effervescent — the very cham- 
pagne of dramatic mirth. Mr. Toole deservedly enjoys 
universal popularity. Mr. Hare is a true artist. Mr. 
Compton, Mr. Lionel Brough, and Mr. J. W. Hill all 
merit honorable mention ; but these and a few others are 
the elite. The generality of our comedians lack comedy. 
They aim for the most part at little more than a spirited 
recitation of the text ; they saunter through their parts, 
it may be, with a certain grace and gave ty, speaking what 
is set down for them with propriety, if not with splendor 
of declamation ; but their humor is fitful and occasional, 
and their fun flashes with uncertain and intermittent 
gleams. It comes and goes like Acres' courage. They 
are fragmentary in their style ; they do not understand 
the enduring of themselves with a dramatic individuality 
as with a garment. They are at times pleasant and en- 
joyable enough, but they step in and out of their charac- 
ters, reverting every now and then to their own personal 
selves, which crop up irrepressibly and will not be sub- 
merged. They have around them no continuous spell of 
illusion. They want the inventive power to imagine a 
distinct ideal, and the executive skill to give to that 
ideal a living embodiment, even as a sculptor having first 
bethought him of a figure might call it into mimic 
existence, awakening to radiant semblance of life the 
dormant block of marble. Above all, they want that 
Vis Comica which gives to the personages of comedy sus- 
tained energy and brilliant vitality, making each of them 



VIS COMICA. 93 

a complete and well-defined creation totus teres atque 
rotundus. Of bygone actors not yet far distant from our 
own day, Dodd, Edwin, Liston, Jack Reeve, Munden, and 
Tyrone Power would appear to have been preeminently 
endowed with this precious gift. They are gone, for 
ever gone, those matchless players, but the laughter they 
evoked is historic, and the echoes of its peals still ring in 
the ears of posterity. Mr. Wright was full of Vis Comica, 
but Wright is lost to us for evermore. There is no actor 
now upon the stage who possesses the Vis Comica in such 
perfection as Mr. J. S. Clarke. If the amount of merri- 
ment he creates may be taken as the measure of a come- 
dian's skill, this actor assuredly stands in the van of his 
profession. He is a very master of his art. He is 
instinct with the spirit of comedy. Everything he says 
and does, smacks of it. There is comedy in his every 
look and action ; it flashes in his eye, beams upon his 
brow, plays around his mouth, throbs through his voice, 
and gives irresistible drollery to his minutest gestures. 
The charm of this, as of all true acting, is that it is per- 
fectly easy and spontaneous. "My invention," says 
Iago, " comes from my pate as bird-lime does from f rize 
— it plucks out brain and all." Invention such as that 
never yet made either poet or player. The quality of 
humor as of mercy is not strained. It must come from 
the actor affluent and unbidden, like the fragrance from 
a flower. So it is with Mr. Clarke. He blossoms into 
fun like a rose-tree into roses. No other comedian upon 
the stage creates such a furore of fun. His empire over 
his hearers is absolute. " Many comedians may amuse," 
says the Times, "but Mr. Clarke can command an 
audience." It is worth any money to see and hear the 
people laughing at him — to observe them swaying to and 



94 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

fro in the storm of his merriment, and to hearken to their 
joyous volleys. He scatters mirth broadcast among his 
audience, and mirth too of so poignant a flavor that the 
aroma of it dwells ever after in the memory. Having 
once seen him is to associate his name thenceforward 
with all that the fancy can conceive of the most humor- 
ous and diverting. " I am acquainted," said Lord 
Byron, " with no immaterial sensuality so delightful 
as good acting." To realize the truth of this remark, we 
have but to recall to remembrance the dramatic crea- 
tions of any genuine actor, and to renew in imagination 
the enjoyment they afforded us when we viewed them for 
the first time. What pleasures of memory are evoked, 
for example, by the very thought of the more important 
personages in Mr. Clarke's gallery of characters ! In 
what strong and luminous relief do they stand out 
against the dull cold background of our work-a-day 
world, and how keen is the sense of intellectual gladness 
that comes over us as they pass before the mind's eye in 
comic array — Pangloss, Acres, Ollapod, Paul Pry, 
Toodles, Babbington Jones, Young Gosling, Wellington 
de Boots, Waddilove, the eccentric lawyer Red Tape, 
and the rest of them ! It is in the representation of such 
muddy-mettled rascals as Acres, Gosling, Paul Pry, Tony 
Lumpkin, and De Boots that this artist's powers of 
facial comedy are displayed to the greatest advantage. 
We are irresistibly reminded of Charles Lamb's match- 
less criticism upon Dodd : " In expressing slowness of 
apprehension this actor surpasses all others. You could 
see the first dawn of an idea stealing slowly over 
his countenance, climbing up by little and little with 
a painful process, till it cleared up at last to the fulness 
of a twilight conception — its highest meridian. He 



VIS COMICA. 9S 

seemed to keep back his intellect, as some have had the 
power to retard their pulsation. The balloon takes less 
time in filing than it took to cover the expansion of his 
moony face over all its quarters with expression. A 
glimmer of understanding would appear in a corner of 
his eye, and for lack of fuel go out again. A part of 
his forehead would catch a little intelligence, and be a 
long time in communicating it to the remainder." Though 
this criticism had been written expressly for Mr. Clarke 
in the characters of Gosling, Paul Pry, and De Boots, it 
could not have fitted him to a greater nicety. Talking 
of his acting in the last-named part, the Times observes : 
" Mr. Clarke remains permanently as Major Wellington 
de Boots, who, as he at present stands, is purely a crea- 
tion of his own. Naturally a poltroon, but too good- 
natured to be utterly contemptible, De Boots is impelled 
by his name to serve in the militia, and affects a soldier- 
like air for which he is wholly unfitted. The 'obvious aim 
of the actor would be to treat him as a mere Bobadil, but 
he is nothing of the kind in the hands of Mr. 
Clarke. The smallness of the swagger, the feeble pomp 
of manner and voice, the propensity to gallantry that 
now and then lights up the face so as almost to change 
the features, and a curious sort of fortitude under 
degradation that supplies the place of courage, belong 
to De Boots alone, and his sole ownership is confessed 
by a thousand minute touches, which cannot possibly be 
described, but which bears witness to the inexhaustible 
invention of the actor." Here we have in fullest per- 
fection that Vis Comica which is to its possessor a foun- 
tain of joy, and which makes every one the happier 
who comes within its range. 

For complete refutation of the hackneyed charge 



9 6 ERR A TIC ESS A YS, 

against modern playgoers of insensibility to the charms 
of good acting, it is pleasant to cite the amount of public 
favor accorded in London to the most celebrated of Mr. 
J. S. Clarke's impersonations. The number of consecu- 
tive nights that he has played Ollapod, Bob Acres, and 
Dr. Pangloss, were sixty in the first case, one hundred 
and twenty-seven in the second, and two hundred and 
fifty in the third. In fact " The Heir at Law," and 
" The Poor Gentleman," with Mr. J. S. Clarke in the 
principal comic characters, were the first of the great 
runs of revived old comedies upon the London stage. 



THE ART OF WALKING. 

T RECEI-VED a letter the other day from a gentle- 
•*■ man whose name I had never before heard, politely 
requesting me to "oblige the world," as he prettily 
phrased it; with an Essay on " Walking." On referring 
to Johnson's Dictionary — as is my habit in all emer- 
gencies — for the meaning of the verb to " walk," I found 
it thus defined — " To move by leisurely steps, so that 
one foot is set down before the other is taken up." Said 
I to myself, and myself said the very same thing to me, 
" Of a verity this unknown friend of mine must be pok- 
ing his fun at me in imposing this task upon me, for 
what man is there on earth of imagination so bril- 
liant, or fancy so affluent, as to be able to pen a treatise 
upon any such subject as this ? " So saying, I inconti- 
nently resolved to think no more of the matter, but 
rather to go to bed, for I had caught a cold, and longed 



THE ART OF WALKING. gy 

for sleep. But second thoughts are proverbially best ; 
and when I came to read my correspondent's letter over 
again, and observed in what terms of eulogy he alluded 
to my writings, and how high was his estimate of my tal- 
ents and accomplishments, " Odsbodikins ! " said I to 
myself, and myself said the self-same thing to me, " this 
fellow is no such fool after all. On the contrary, he is 
a man of taste and discernment ; so I will take the topic 
in hand, and seriously consider what is to be done with 
it." Moreover, I have invariably made it a point to do 
whatever I am told, and to turn my back upon no duty 
whatsoever, that any fellow-creature may choose to as- 
sign to me. In this blessed frame of mind I folded my 
arms, closed my eyes, and, lolling back in my arm-chair, 
began to extract from the storehouse of my memory 
ancient reminiscences of all that I had ever seen, heard, 
or read on the subject of walking ; and, strange to 
say, the theme grew upon me in magnitude and glory 
the more thought I bestowed upon it, till at last I ar- 
rived at the conviction that, whether regarded from a 
poetic or a purely pedestrian point of view, there is no 
other question of greater importance or more profound 
interest. 

When we pause to think that walking is the most ob- 
vious and natural mode of progression for a human 
being, we cannot choose but wonder how few people 
there are who know how to do it. One might have sup- 
posed that walking would have come as easy to a man 
as swimming to a fish or flying to a bird ; but it is not 
so. In early babyhood we are not able to stand, much 
less to walk. To " toddle " is our first achievement in 
the art of locomotion ; and there are individuals who, 
though they may cease to toddle, can hardly be said to 
7 



9 8 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

ever arrive at a more dignified or more graceful use of 
their legs. They " shuffle," or " shamble," or " bounce," 
or " trot," or " amble," or move along in a mincing gait, 
or " loaf about," or " waddle ; " but they cannot walk 
in any fashion worthy of the name. There is a vast 
deal of character in the way a man walks, and his tem- 
per has more to do with the " 'havior " of his limbs than 
is commonly credited. " By that shambling in his walk 
it should be my rich banker, Gomez, whom I knew at 
Barcelona ; " says Dryden, in the Spanish Friar; and 
the remark " smacks of observation," for rich men have 
often, sure enough, a shamble in their walk, and drag 
their legs along in a slow, ungainly manner, as though 
they would pull the ground after them in the hope of 
wringing money out of it. Have you ever observed 
what a peculiar walk good people have ; how carefully 
they pick their steps, and how sanctimoniously they look 
down their noses ? The Puritanical gait still tradition- 
ally assigned to Quakers (upon the stage), has been 
adopted in real life by Christian Workers, and those in- 
estimable Moody-and-Sankeyites who, with sheafs of 
tracts in their hands, sally forth upon their house-to- 
house visitation, and sing the praises of the " Evange- 
lists " wherever they go. They are precious pots of 
ointment and blessed vessels of election, these same 
Christian Workers ; only one could wish that they would 
walk more briskly, talk more pleasantly, and not look 
as though they had swallowed live eels, and found them 
difficult of digestion. Some people there are of whom 
we may say in Shakespearean phrase, that theirs is " the 
forced gait of a shuffling nag." They are vain enough 
to believe that everybody is looking at them, so they 
become artificial in their movements, and cannot for the 



THE ART OF WALKING. 



99 



lives of them be natural. The " bouncers," to whom Al- 
bert Smith has, if I am not mistaken, devoted an amus- 
ing essay, are, generally speaking, ladies of a certain 
age. They come towards you with a springy, elastic 
step, as much as to say, " See how young I am!" They 
remind you of the wild gazelle on Judah's hill, who " ex- 
ulting yet may bound," though ruin and desolation 
meet the gaze on every side. The number of women 
of whatever age who can walk well is very small, though, 
of course, much larger than that of men similarly ac- 
complished. Indeed, you may take it for granted that 
for one man who can do anything well, be it what it may, 
there are at the very least fifty women who can do it 
better. And this holds good in walking, as in all things 
else. It is a saying of Pope's that " they move easiest 
who have learned to dance ; " and as more women than 
men learn to dance, that may be one reason out of 
many, why women as a sex walk so much better. The 
main cause is, of course, to be found in their superior 
integrity of purpose, and that inner rectitude which 
gives to the movement of the body a correspondent 
grace and propriety. Nevertheless, it now and then 
happens that we meet with ladies very much embonpoint, 
who, eschewing all attempts at walking, properly so 
called, prefer to waddle. Of this type was the famous 
Mrs. Gill, who, whenever she felt " poorly," longed to 
be off to Paris : — 

" Mrs. Gill is very ill, 

And nothing will improve her, 
Except to see the Tuileries, 

And waddle through the Louvre." 

Bless her heart ! How well I remember the day I 
first met her there with her guide-book and Bradshaw's, 



I oo ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

her gingham, her fan, and her shawls, and all hef othe* 
belongings, waddling through the picture-galleries like a 
dear old goose as she was, and shedding her cockney 
" H's " all over the glossy floor. Gill told me on the 
sly that she preferred a pigeon-pie to the finest picture 
ever painted by Paul Veronese or Claude Lorraine ; but 
I dare say he was a slanderer. Husbands are such to a 
man. I know a lady the very reverse of Mrs. Gill ; 
and, oh ! what a lady she is — 

" She walks in beauty like the night 
Of cloudless climes and starry skies, 

And all that's best of dark and bright 
Meet in her aspect and her eyes." 

Spenser, the poet, tells us of a lady whose tongue 
kept pace with her feet, and who was well skilled in the 
wifely duty of upbraiding her lord — 

" As she went her tongue did walk 

In foul reproach and terms of vile despight, 
Provoking him by her outrageous talk." 

We occasionally find that people have two kinds of 
walks, — one for the streets, another for indoors. I have 
seen fellows move along gracefully enough in the Park, 
who hardly knew what to do with their legs in the 
gilded saloons of fashion. In the days of our fathers, 
ere the foot-pavements were as cleanly and secure as 
they now are, there was a mighty ado among walkers 
every now and then about the right to the wall, and 
many a duel was fought on the point. " I never give 
the wall to fools," said a drunken young spark one night 
in Pall Mall to a sedate old gentleman, who was going 
home inoffensively. "I always do," was the gentle- 



THE ART OF WALKING. 101 

man's reply, as he stepped into the street ; and the 
braggart was left in undisturbed possession of the en- 
vied place. The days for such broils have, happily, 
vanished ; but though there is no longer any dispute 
about the wall, your temper is at times sorely tried by 
vascillating wayfarers, who cannot make up their minds 
which way to go. You move to the right — so do they ; 
you take the left — they follow your example ; till at last 
you rub noses together in the middle of the footpath, 
and look like a pair of idiots. There was a time when 
I used to take off my hat to such waverers, and it was 
as good as a play to see us both bowing, pirouetting, 
and gyrating on the pavement for some minutes con- 
secutively, till at last my indecisive friend would make 
some "cursory " remark and bolt into the middle of the 
street. But I have no heart for fun now ; so I adopt a 
masterly policy of inaction, coming instantaneously to a 
standstill, and leaving my tormentor to dance around 
me as though I were a statue. This is a capital plan. 
Try it. The art of walking in the streets is so essential 
to general comfort that one cannot but wonder that it 
does not command more serious attention. A man 
should pursue smoothly and circumspectly the noiseless 
tenor of his way, not throwing his arms about like the 
shafts of a windmill, not digging his elbows in the ribs 
of his fellow-passengers, nor thrusting his shoulders for- 
ward so as to " cannon" people who have done him no 
wrong, but " using all gently," and so regulating his 
deportment as to consult for the ease of his fellow- 
creatures as well as for his own. In fact, you may know 
a gentleman by his walking nearly as well as by his 
talking, a nice regard for the feelings of others being 
indicative of good-breeding in each case. For the rest, 



I0 2 ERRA TIC ESSA YS. 

to walk with grace a man should be drilled. What is it 
that makes military men look so much taller than civil- 
ians of the same stature ? Simply that the former have 
been drilled. The drilled man looks not only taller but 
manlier, and handsomer than the undrilled, and there- 
fore enjoys much higher favor with the ladies — a fact of 
greater weight than a thousand arguments to show the 
value of good walking. Nor should we overlook the 
rare worth of that art upon the stage, to walk well being 
one of the most essential accomplishments for an actor 
who would make a figure in his profession. 

So much for " walking " in the purely physical sense 
of. the term. But the word has also a figurative inter- 
pretation which the poets have turned to romantic ac- 
count. To walk means " to appear as a spectre," and 
in that signification Shakespeare uses it with solemn 
effect. Thus is it employed, for example, in The Win- 
ter's Tale—" The spirits of the dead may walk again ; if 
such things be, thy mother appeared to me last night." 
In the awful picture of Lady Macbeth in her walking 
dream, the word " walked " gives the key to the whole 
composition, and tones the mind to terror. It gives you 
it once the idea of that unrest which comes of mental 
anguish. " When was it she last walked ? " " I have 
seen her rise from her bed, unlock her closet, take forth 
paper, write upon it, read it, and return to bed, yet all 
this while in a most fast sleep." But apart from this 
metaphysical sense, the word " walk," though apparently 
one of the most common-place in the language, is sus- 
ceptible of the most poetic treatment. Nothing can be 
much lovelier than its import in the description of day- 
break, as given in Hamlet ; — 



THE ART OF WALKING. 

" The Morn, in russet mantle clad, 
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill." 



103 



So, too, Byron employs the phrase with the happiest 
effect in his description of a sailing ship : — 

" She walks the waters like a thing of life, 
And seems to dare the elements to strife." 

So, also, Wordsworth, in his mournful meditations on 
the most ill-starred of poets :— 

" I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, 
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride 
Of him who walked in glory and in pride." 

Milton waxes eloquent about " the happy walks and 
shades of Paradise," and makes Adam address his en- 
chantress in these love-lorn words : — " Nor walk by 
moon, nor glittering star-light without thee is sweet." 
And what beauty ineffable dwells in these verses of 
Henry Vaughan (A. D. 162 1), suggested by the thought 
of his dead friends : — 

" I see them walking in an air of glory, 

Whose light doth trample on my days, 
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary, 
Mere glimmerings and decays." 

Of similar grace and tenderness are Andrich's verses 
on the loss of his daughter — verses to be read without 
emotion by those whose hearts have been wrung by no 
kindred misery and by them alone : — 

" Her sufferings ended with the day, 
Yet lived she at its close, 
And breathed the long, long night away 
In statue-like repose. 



1 04 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

But when the sky in all his state 
Illumed the eastern skies, 
She passed through Glory's morning gate 
And walked in Paradise." 

But of all uses of the word the most pathetic is that 
given to it by Macbeth, to illustrate the visionary quality 
of human existence. " Life is but a walking shadow ! " 
The shadow of a cloud, the Arabs call it, but the figure 
is too aerial. A walking shadow better describes its ter- 
rene condition and its spectral affinity to death, whose 
pestilence walketh in darkness. Yes ; " Life is but a 
walking shadow." 



THE MISERY OF BEING RESPECTABLE. 

T WAS born in a " respectable " station of society. It 
is a melancholy fact and one which I have never 
ceased to deplore. Had I been consulted in the mat- 
ter, I should have much preferred not to be born at all. 
In that case the loss to my readers , would have been 
enormous ; but the gain to me would have been beyond 
the power of language to express. Here I am, how- 
ever, and I must make the best of it, but how to do that 
is a task of no small difficulty. It would not have been 
half so difficult if I had not had the ill-luck to be born 
in that rank of life known conventionally as " respect- 
able." Next to having been born at all, the greatest 
misfortune that can befall a human being is to have 
been born into what the world calls " respectability." 
Now let me not be mistaken ; I protest against being 
misunderstood. Why should any body presume to mis- 



THE MISER Y OF BEING RESPECTABLE. 105 

understand me ? Hear me out ! " Strike, but hear ! " 
as the Greek slave said of old. Suffer me to explain. 
Do hold your peace for a minute or two. Do be quiet. 
Keep your hair on ! Zounds, man ! Am I not to be 
master in my own column, even as St. Simon Stilites 
was on his ? You must not run away with the idea that 
because I wince beneath the bondage of " respectabil- 
ity," I am therefore a plebeian, of coarse tastes and 
vulgar sympathies. No such thing. I am a Tory of 
the grand old school. I go in for Church and State ; 
and good old port whenever I can get it. I abhor Re- 
publicanism, despise demagogues, and have not, I am 
proud to say, one thought or opinion in common with 
Mr. Odger. My tastes are graceful ; my sympathies 
are refined ; I am altogether delightful. I should not 
care to possess more political liberty than I already en- 
joy. What I sigh for, what I weep for, what I pine for, 
what I would give my mustache and front teeth for, is 
social freedom. I want to be free and easy — to be lord 
of myself in my goings out and comings in — to live as I 
like, to eat and drink as I like, to dress as I like, to say 
and do whatsoever # things may be most pleasing to me, 
without let or hindrance from any man. All these 
glorious privileges would be mine if I were either a 
peer or a peasant. I will do myself the justice to be- 
lieve that if I had been born into the purple of the 
peerage I should have done no dishonor to my noble 
lineage. A lofty title and a fine estate are impregnable 
fortresses against the assaults of prejudice. Thus 
powerfully protected I should have snapped my fingers 
at Mrs. Grundy, and struck out for myself a bold and 
original course. I should have worn my parliamentary 
robes in the streets, and gone about in my coronet. 



1 06 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

Had I come into the world a peasant baby, fated in 
after life to dig or mow, to harrow or plough, I should 
have enjoyed equal, if not still greater liberty. Secure 
in my insignificance, I should have provoked no inter- 
ference. I should have been left to follow my own 
vagary. No one would have thought it worth his while 
to meddle with me. My grievance is that I was born 
neither a peer nor a peasant, but simply "respectable." 
I was born into Schedule D, and so created I am a 
slave ; I must move in a prescribed groove ; live in 
stated style ; comply rigidly with certain conventional 
rules ; and, above all things, keep up appearances. If I 
were not "respectable," I should be the happiest of 
men ; but my respectability clings to me like the poi- 
soned tunic of Dejanira. There are a thousand delight- 
ful and perfectly innocent things which I should be re- 
joiced to do ; but " respectability " forbids me. My 
present desolate and disconsolate condition — for I am 
lonely as the sparrow on the house-top — is due alto- 
gether to my " respectability." Every man forms his 
own ideal of happiness. Mine is a very modest one. I 
want to get married. Where, how, when, or to whom is 
of no great consequence. All I desire is to get mar- 
ried. Oh ! to have a blazing fire, and a singing kettle, 
and a purring cat, and a plate of buttered muffins. Oh ! 
to knock at my hall-door with a bold unfaltering hand 
after a hard day's work, and instantaneously to find 
myself clasped in the snowy arms of a lovely being 
who, covering me with kisses, would exclaim, "Wel- 
come home, my beautiful ! my own ! " And then what 
Elysian delight after dinner to puff my pipe placidly by 
the fire-side — by the " ingle," my Scotch friend Mul- 
feather calls it— and silently to watch the clouds of 



THE MISERY OF BEING RESPECTABLE.. 



107 



smoke curling gracefully towards the ceiling like man's 
vain glories and his vainer troubles, while the wife of 
my bosom — seraphic creature ! — would " nag " at me 
all night long for some imaginary offence, or blow me 
up as high as the moon for something or another which 
I could no more have helped than I could have gov- 
erned the currents of the "ocean. To be nagged at and 
blown up by a beautiful being of your own, who loves 
you all the while like apple-pie, and whom you love like 
plum-pudding, is, to my idea, the happiest privilege of 
matrimony. Married men have assured me that the 
sensation is something ecstatic ; but from these, and 
all the other exquisite felicities of the married state, I 
am debarred by my " respectability." Why should 
there not be a wife of mine sitting in the seat of the 
scorner ? Why should not little children of mine be 
running all over the house? I'll tell you why. Because 
I am " respectable." If I had been either a peer or a 
peasant, I could have afforded to marry ; but, being 
simply " respectable," I cannot do it for the money. It 
is not on the cards. A woman in a passion with her 
husband is, to my thinking, the sublimest spectacle un- 
der either sun or moon. I know a parson who calls his 
wife " Circumstances " over whom he has no control, 
and he assures me that it is a sight for the gods to see 
" Circumstances " pacing up and down the drawing- 
room, her lovely form expanding with rage, her damask 
cheeks crimsoned to the Tyrian die, her marble brow 
clouded with thunder, her matchless bosom heaving 
with internal tempest, her starry eyes flashing light- 
ning, and all for nothing ; for what is a husband but 
nothing ? Alas, alas ! a thousand times alas ! that 
glorious spectacle can never gladden my eyes. " I have 



1 08 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

no wife," said Othello. No more have I, my sable 
Moor. I cannot afford the priceless luxury. Being 
myself " respectable," Society, inexorable tyrant, would 
insist upon my keeping my wife, if I had one, in a 
" respectable " style, and I have not the cash to do it. 
Thus is my "respectability" the rock a-head that for- 
bids a pleasant cruise through life, and dooms me to 
the shoals and shallows of a bachelor's ignoble destiny. 
Oh ! why am I not either a duke or a plowman ? Were 
I the former I could easily manage to keep my wife in 
splendor ; were I the latter it would not matter three- 
halfpence how I might keep her ; but, being merely 
" respectable," the female sex exists in vain for me. I 
am rich enough to live respectably as a bachelor, but 
what is an elegant sufficiency for a bachelor would be 
beggary for a married man. Look at the price of coals ; 
look at the price of everything. What business should 
I have to marry when a bonnet costs £$ 3^., a silk 
gown £& 8j\, a dress-improver a guinea. ; while peram- 
bulators are sold at ^36 a dozen ? And so it is in 
every affair of life. Turn where I may, do what I will, 
I am bowled out of happiness by my " respectability." 
I hate a chimney-pot hat. I should dearly love to walk 
down Regent Street either hatless like a Bluecoat boy, 
or with a soft brown felt of the old " wide-awake " 
fashion ; but it is more than I would dare to do. 
Nothing could give me greater pleasure than to go 
about in the Highland costume, my head surmounted 
with the aforesaid " wide-awake " and carrying a naked 
claymore in my right hand — I should look so pictur- 
esque and impressive ! — but here also I am confronted 
by that plague and pest of my life — " respectability." 
People would account me mad. I have a certain 



THE MISER Y OF BEING RESPECTABLE. 1 09 

position to maintain, and maintain it I must, or else 
be ostracized for a maniac. Then, again, I love to 
smoke a clay pipe — a nose-warmer — about two inches 
long, and as black as your shoe ; but if a man of my 
" respectability " were to be seen in the Row with such 
a thing in his mouth, no decent person would ever care 
to be seen speaking to him. He might as well pack up 
his traps and be off to the Antipodes. I never pass 
through Trafalgar Square without longing to mount the 
empty pedestal which now looks so lob-sided and inele- 
.gant, and to stand upon it with folded arms in an ora- 
torical attitude instinct with statuesque grace, that the 
B. P. might admire " the glass of fashion and the mould 
of form ; " but, bless you ! it were as much as my life 
is worth to attempt such a thing. Blackguard little boys 
would deiide me for a "guy." Bobbies would brandish 
their truncheons around my devoted head ; and next 
morning the newspaper placards' would be emblazoned 
with the sensational announcement, " Extraordinary 
Conduct of a Respectable Man in Trafalgar Square." 
And yet, when one comes to think of it, it does seem 
hard — does it not ? — that " respectability " should be at 
such a discount. If one of the pedestals is to be as- 
signed to George IV., surely they might allow the other 
to be occupied by a respectable man, if only for the 
variety of the thing. But no ; " respectability " is of 
little worth unless it be accompanied with money, with- 
out which, not to speak it profanely, there is, indeed, no 
true " respectability." " Respectability " cuts down 
my pleasures and exacts from me circumspect conduct 
and a rigid demeanor ; yet it is an every-day occurrence 
to find at the bar of justice either some man " of most 
respectable appearance," who, as the reporters assure 



1 1 o ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

us, " appears to feel his position acutely," or else some 
case-hardened person who does not seem to care a fig- 
stalk about it. Meanwhile I am obliged to look de- 
murely down my nose and dare not so much as wink at 
a pretty girl. If I do, the Society for the Protection, 
etc., etc., etc., will be down upon me. A donkey-ride 
at Hampstead, a gallop upon a spavined hack at 
Blackheath, a halfpenny ice at London Wall, a shy at 
Aunt Sally anywhere — these are pleasures worthy of the 
name, but I must not enjoy them. In fact, I am, sex 
excepted, a respectable Peri mourning at the gates of a 
Paradise I may not enter. I am fond of my species. 
I love the human race, especially men, women, and 
children ; and next to children what I most admire in 
the world is music. It gladdens my heart and makes 
my blood tingle for joy to see the children of the poor, 
waltzing around an Italian organ-grinder or some other 
noble troubadour who has come here from far distant 
lands to administer to our delight. I often feel inclined 
to throw off my coat and dance merrily with these tiny 
elves ; but I must not think of it unless I would lose 
caste for ever. What ! a " respectable " man dancing 
in an alley with ragged, unwashed children. Who ever 
heard of such a thing ? I should very much like to ride 
upon the knife-board of an omnibus, but it is not 
" comme il faut." It is bad "form." You remember 
Leech's droll little picture of the powdered footman 
giving his mistress warning. " What is your griev- 
ance ? Why do you wish to leave ? " asks the mistress. 
" Oh ! mum," replies the flunkey, " master was seen 
yesterday on the houtside of a homnibus, and I can't 
think of remaining longer in his service after that no- 
how." For my own part I would go to the pit of a 



A WET DAY AT ^LLANGOLLEN m 

theatre if I dared ; but it is out of the question. A 
man with downwards of ^iooo a-year go to the pit ! 
Impossible ! So I have nothing for it but to go to the 
orchestra-stalls at three times the expense, and sit all 
night within six inches of a fellow who splits my ears 
with a trombone. Baked potatoes are, to my thinking, 
some of the few things worth living for ; they tantalize 
my nose at every street-corner on a winter night ; but 
to me they are forbidden fruit. " Respectable " people 
don't eat potatoes in the street. Of course not. There 
is only one man in the world whom I really envy, and 
that is the man who thwacks the big drum in a huge 
van drawn by four horses and crowded with little chil- 
dren who are going on a picnic to Epping Forest. I 
would gladly give a £§ note (of the Bank of Elegance) 
to take that drummer's post and thwack that big drum 
all day long ; but here again " Respectability " steps in 
and wrenches the drum sticks out of my hands. In a 
word, " Respectability " is the bane and bother of my 
life. I should be twice as happy if I were not half so 
respectable. 



A WET DAY AT LLANGOLLEN. 

T WAS still in the cradle when my nurse, a Welsh- 
woman, with a melodious. voice and an inexhausti- 
ble store of romantic legends, made me acquainted with 
three personages whom I have ever since regarded with 
peculiar veneration. They were all country-people of 
her own — the first being a thief named Taffy, who, as 
she assured me, came to our house and stole a shin of 



112 ERRATIC ESSAYS. 

beef ; the second, a philosophic miller, who dwelt on 
the banks of the Dee, and whose noble boast it was 
that he cared for nobody, no, not he, and that nobody 
cared for him ; and the third, a pretty girl called Jenny 
Jones, who lived in the vale of Llangollen. Every one 
has. his special favorites, whether in the region of verit- 
able history, or in that of poetic fiction ; and this match- 
less trio have been from earliest childhood to the pre- 
sent hour the darlings of my imagination. For their 
dear sake have I been rambling about the Cambrian 
mountains for the last three weeks ; but I grieve to say 
that though I have made inquiries in all directions I 
have not as yet succeeded in finding the idols of my in- 
fantine fancy. Standing on Thursday last upon the 
Bridge of Llangollen, which, permit me to observe, for 
the information of architects, is a plain Gothic structure, 
consisting of four irregularly pointed arches of various 
dimensions with projecting angular buttresses — my 
thoughts took a melancholy hue, and a wave of solemn 
sentiment swept over my soul. (What a lot of S's to be 
sure !) " Talk of the everlasting hills and the imperish- 
able firmament," quoth I to myself, " and set them in 
contrast with that fleeting shadow called Man ! We 
need no such potent comparisons. . Measure man with 
the works of his own hands ! What is the life that dwells 
in flesh and blood to the life that dwells in brick and 
mortar ? What is the life of a man compared to the life 
of a bridge ? This bridge upon which I now stand, the 
admired of all admirers, was built by Anica, Bishop of 
St. Asaph, in the year of grace, 1350, which, according 
to Cocker, was 526 years ago. Across this immemorial 
structure have doubtless passed full many a time and 
oft Jenny Jones, loveliest of the maids of Llangollen ; 



A WET DAY AT LLANGOLLEN. 113 

Taffy, who was afflicted with kleptomania in bovine 
matters ; and that most stoical of millers who did not 
care three-halfpence for any human being, and for whom 
no human being cherished feelings of warmer interest. 
Where are they now — the village belle, the crafty shin- 
stealer, and the pococurante mill-owner? Where are 
they all ? They are gone — gone, never to return ; but 
the bridge survives in all the pride and glory of inde- 
structible masonry." So spake I to myself, and so speak- 
ing, I wiped away a tear. Suddenly it occurred to me 
that though these worthy people have vanished like the 
snow that fell last year, I might, at least, have the satis- 
faction of visiting their places of burial. At that mo- 
ment came up a policeman, drest in a little blue author- 
ity and looking uncommonly nice in his neat uniform. 
" Sir," said I, touching my hat, as you know is my wont 
in such an august presence, and assuming that tone of 
deference which I never fail to adopt in addressing one 
of " the force," " will you have the kindness to direct 
me to the graves of Jenny Jones, Taffy the thief, and 
the Miller, whose name I do not know, but who is cele- 
brated for having turned up his nose at everybody, and 
at whom everybody turned up his nose." Pity is it you 
did not see the expression of the constable's face. He 
frowned at me so sternly that I verily believed he was 
going to run me in there and then. " As sure as fate," 
thought I, " this fellow means to lock me up in Mold 
jail." I was in a dreadful fright, and had some 
thoughts of jumping into the Dee ; but a happy idea 
flashed upon my distracted brain. I will try what virtue 
there is in baccy. " Let me offer you a weed, sir," I 
observed in the blandest accents. The sun was a fool 
to the smile that broke over his noble countenance. He 
8 



! j 4 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

took the weed — indeed, he took two — and, in the twink- 
ling of an eye, we were as intimate as though we had 
known one another for seven years. He expressed pro- 
found regret at being unable to give me any information 
respecting the final resting-places either of the Beef- 
eater or the Miller, but he assured me that " Jenny 
Jones " was a road-side public-house not many yards 
distant, where I might rely on getting a good glass of 
ale. I asked him whether he had ever read Chateau- 
briand, and I was amazed to find that he had not. I 
reminded him that this was the most pathetic season of 
the year, and directing his attention to the fading glories 
of the foliage and the desolate aspect of the landscape, 
I quoted some passages from my favorite French essay- 
ist. " Sir," said I, " I adjure you by your brilliant but- 
tons and the numbers flashing so radiantly from your 
collar, never to forget that a moral character is attached 
to autumnal scenes, the leaves falling like our years, 
the flowers fading like our hours, the clouds fleeting 
like our illusions, the light diminishing like our intelli- 
gence, the sun growing colder like our affections, the 
river becoming frozen like our lives — all bear secret re- 
lations to our destinies." In reply to these meditations 
the policeman made a succession of unearthly noises 
the most appalling I had ever heard. He seemed to 
be suddenly bereft of humanity. I thought he must be 
very ill indeed, and I was about to run for a doctor 
when I was assured by a by-stander that there was no- 
thing the matter with the man, and that he was only 
talking Welsh. " Ah ! well," said I, " if that is all that 
ails him, I won't let him off so easily. I will improve 
the occasion still further." I asked him whether he had 
ever read Alison's History of Europe. He replied in the 



A WET DAY AT LLANGOLLEN. 115 

negative, adding that " he didn't want to ! " All this 
time, mind you, we were standing upon the Bridge of 
Llangollen. " Seven-and-twenty years," said I, " have 
elapsed since Alison the historian visited your charming 
little town. He stood upon this very spot and surveyed 
the romantic scene with wonder and delight. It was 
exactly at this time of the year. Returning to the 
Hand Hotel, where he found, even as I have found, 
excellent accommodation at a moderate charge, he re- 
corded his sensations in the following language: — 
" The impression we feel from the scenery of autumn is 
accompanied with much exercise of thought ; the leaves 
then begin to fade from the trees ; the flowers and 
shrubs, with which the fields are adorned in the summer 
months, decay; the woods and groves are silent; the 
sun himself seems gradually to withdraw his light, or to 
become enfeebled in his power. Who is there, who at 
this season does not feel his mind impressed with a sen- 
timent of melancholy ; or who is able to resist that cur- 
rent of thought which, from such appearances of decay, 
so naturally leads him to the solemn imagination of that 
inevitable fate which is to bring on alike the decay of 
life, of empire, and of nature itself ? " " Friend of my 
soul! what think you of thatl" "Well, sir," said the 
policeman, " to be honest with you, I think it is uncom- 
mon dry, and not meaning you an ill answer, I don't 
care to listen to any more of it, so I'll bid you good 
morning." " Away ! away to the mountain's brow ! " I 
replied ; and taking me at my word, off he went at a 
pace so rapid that two minutes had hardly passed ere 
his manly form was lost to my longing gaze. I don't 
suppose I shall ever lay eyes upon him again, and I'm 
sure I don't care a fig-stalk whether or no. No sooner 



1 1 6 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

had the constable disappeared than, by the most tragi- 
cal of all coincidences, many things occurred to make 
me feel most acutely the solitariness and discomfort of 
my situation. The sky scowled ominously, the clouds 
mustered in dismal battalions heavy as lead and black 
as pitch, the wind sprang up fiercely from the south- 
west, and the rain came down in torrents. The river 
raced away at headlong speed, and the trees upon its 
banks wrestled wildly with the storm. Next to seeing a 
woman in a passion, which I hold to be the most mag- 
nificent spectacle in the world, I delight to contemplate 
the emotion of external nature : — 

" In winter when the dismal rain 
Comes down in slanting lines, 
And Wind that grand old harper smites 
His thunder-harp of pines," 

then am I supremely happy. I love to see the ocean 
flashing and foaming, the rivers rushing in vehement 
tide, and the oaks writhing in the tempest. Look 
where I might, as I stood majestic and alone upon 
Llangollen Bridge, nature was in sublime disarray, and 
I enjoyed the sight amazingly. The spirit of mischief 
was a-foot ; the Dee looked as if it was mad ; even the 
Ellesmere and Chester canal partook of the grand sen- 
sation of the hour, and quickened its sluggish pace. 
I verily believe that since that remarkable rainy period, 
the Flood, there never was a deluge more overwhelm- 
ing. It seemed to fall by the ton-weight, and the earth 
smoked beneath the drenching vibration. There I 
stood, the only human being out of doors at Llangollen. 
Yes, there I stood,, heroic and devoted, the martyr of 
duty in thy cause, dear reader. I tried to put up my 



A WET DAY AT LLANGOLLEN'. uj 

umbrella. The wind wrung it out of my hands with no 
more ceremony than if it had been the last rose of 
summer. (It was a capital umbrella, allow me to ob- 
serve, and I paid four-and-twenty shillings for it at Mr. 
Truefit's, in Burlington Arcade.) It fell into the dark- 
ling water beneath, and I doubt not that, at the rate 
those waters were running, it was at Chester in half an 
hour. For a moment I was alarmed — not for the sake 
of my gingham, which is lost as irretrievably as if I had 
lent it — but because, on glancing towards the summits 
of Barber's Hill, Eglwyseg Rocks, and Dinas Bran 
Castle, once the residence of — (how the devil shall I 
ever spell it ?) — Madogap Gruff yd Maclor, I saw that 
those lofty eminences were enshrouded with dense 
rolling vapors, of very peculiar color and formation. 
" Gracious Goodness ! " I exclaimed in an agony of 
terror, "can it be that my old friend the London Fog 
has found me out, and pursued me to the fastnesses of 
Cambria ! Wretch that I am ! Whither shall I fly 
from that pest and bother of my life ? I will return to 
mine inn and go to bed." This inglorious design I 
should probably have carried into effect, though it was 
only half-past two in the afternoon, but that, on looking 
up again, I saw that the mists were being rapidly dis- 
persed, and that the mountain-tops stood out once 
more in well-defined relief against the storm-fraught 
sky. Soon the blast blew more fiercely than ever, and 
the rain came down in pattering torrents ; but I was 
nothing moved. So that the London Fog comes not 
near me I care not. " Blow, winds, and crack your 
cheeks ! Rage ! blow ! I tax not you, you elements, 
with unkindness." Certainly not, so that ye bring not 
with ye "the London particular." Wet as a fish, I 



1 1 8 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

sallied forth, all umbrellaless as I was, in search of the 
picturesque and beautiful. Pennant, the eminent anti- 
quarian and tourist, writing about Llangollen eighty- 
years ago, remarked that he knew of no place in North 
Wales " where the refined lover of picturesque scenes, 
the sentimental, or the romantic, can give fuller indul- 
gence to his inclination. No place abounds more with 
various rides or solemn walks. From this central spot, 
he may, as I have done, visit the seat of Owen Glyndwr, 
the fine valleys of the Dee, proceed to the source of 
the river beyond the great Llyn Tegid, or pass the 
mountains to the fertile vale of Clwyd, and on to the 
sea." I have followed sedulously in the footsteps of 
old Pennant. I have seen everything he saw, and a great 
deal more besides ; but if you suppose that I am going 
to describe it all to you, you are deucedly mistaken. I 
rambled about the Geraunt, the Pont Cyssylltan Aque- 
duct, the Du Viaduct, Crow Castle, Wynnstay, Glyn 
Ceiriog, and Cherk Castle. I sentimentalized in the 
Cottage of Plass Newydd, where formerly dwelt in 
inviolate friendship Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss 
Ponsonby, known as u the Ladies of Llangollen," and 
I trudged wearily along the Canal amid soaking rains 
all the way to Valle Crucis Abbey, where, after I had 
been kept ringing in the wet at the western entrance 
for the best part of half an hour, the door was at last 
opened to me by an elderly gentlewoman, whom I 
should very much like to marry, and who told me that 
in her opinion it was not at all unlikely that the Abbey 
would one day pass again into the hands of the Catho- 
lics. " Look ! " said she, " at what has already hap- 
pened in the Principality. The Earl of Denbigh, the 
Marquis of Bute, and the Marquis of Ripon have all 
• 



TO WN TREES AND CO UNTR Y TREES. 1 1 9 

become Catholics!" "So, indeed, they have, madam," 
I replied, " and permit me to remark that I am cold 
and hungry, and as wet as the sea ; so I'll bid you good- 
bye, and if you should ever meet anybody who asks you 
for me, be sure to give him half-a-crown." Miss Lloyd 
promised to do so — bless her dear heart — and we 
parted. Returning to Llangollen, I had tea at the 
house of a charming family, to whom I was introduced 
by an old friend. One member of that happy house- 
hold, a diamond-eyed little girl of some six or seven 
summers, lent me a kiss, and nothing that I remem- 
ber of Llangollen pleases me better than the memory 
of that kiss. I hope to return it to the lender before 
long. 

In conclusion, let me say that the net result of my 
experience of this place is that I should dearly love to 
live here. I have, as the tourists say, " done " Llan- 
gollen completely. I know it as well as I know Tra- 
falgar Square, but I like it far better ; and if my readers 
would wish to see me happily settled here for the re- 
mainder of my days, they have only to subscribe a 
. sufficient sum for the purchase of a freehold cottage and 
a competency as modest as myself. 



TOWN TREES AND COUNTRY TREES. 

TT is of vegetation that we who dwell in a great city 
most grievously feel the want. Seas, lakes, moun- 
tains, towering cliffs, sparkling cascades, and foaming 
cataracts are no doubt magnificent achievements of 



1 20 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

nature, but like all other sublimities they are of rare 
occurrence ; and even though you should live in the 
country, you may have to travel many miles before you 
look on them. But the silent, brilliant blossoming of 
vegetation — its refreshing verdure, and the abundance, 
variety, and loveliness of its forms, are free alike to all 
who lead a rural life. To enjoy them, all that is neces- 
sary is that you should be remote from cities. It is for 
the green fields and the waving trees that the heart longs 
with a filial yearning ; for, as a German writer has well 
observed, " Nothing more clearly expresses the mater- 
nal character of nature than vegetation." Wonderful 
are the works of man — mighty the mutations that his 
genius can accomplish on the face of the material 
world — and sad, alas ! the havoc that his cunning hand 
can spread over a smiling landscape. Look at the 
characteristic life of the age — its vast material develop- 
ment — its irresistible and crushing growth of mechanism 
— its swarming towns — its distracting mills — its noisy 
agitation — its chaos of beliefs and unbeliefs. All these 
things betoken the vascularity of the national heart, and 
the vigorous vitality of the national mind — but they are 
not without their alloy. The turbulent cares of com- 
merce alienate us from the tender sympathies of nature ; 
we renounce her gentle sway for an inexorable tyranny, 
and forsake her fair domains, her warbling woodlands, 
her shady valleys, and her sunny hills that we may sur- 
round ourselves with the heartless conventionalities of 
an artificial existence. But 

" Man, though he may build a town, 
Could never make a thistle-down." 

And if the city proclaims what he can do, the country, 
with equal significance, prescribes the limits of his 



TOWN TREES AND COUNTRY TREES. I2 i 

power. " It is pleasant," says Burnet, " to look upon 
trees in summer covered with green leaves, decked with 
blossoms, or laden with fruit, and casting a pleasant 
shade ; but to consider how this tree sprang from a little 
seed, how nature shaped and fed it till it came to this 
greatness is a more rational pleasure." Here, indeed, 
is a theme for philosophic inquiry, but it is somewhat 
beyond the mastery of " a mere molecular accident " 
like man. The affinity between the destiny of that same 
" accident " and the doom of trees did not escape the 
notice of Homer, whose brief meditation on the matter 
was Englished thus by Alexander Pope : — 
" The sons of men like leaves of trees are found 
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground ; " 

It is a comfortable thought for poor men to think 
that there are things which money may not create, and 
that among them are esteem and love and — venerable 
trees. Old trees in their living state are beyond the 
command of cash. Rivers leave their beds, run into 
cities, and traverse mountains for cash. Obelisks and 
arches, railways and viaducts, palaces and temples, 
amphitheatres and pyramids, rise up like exhalations at 
its bidding. Even the free spirit of man, the only great 
thing on earth, crouches and cowers in its presence. It 
passes away and vanishes before venerable trees. It is 
in the swarming streets, aye, amid the turbulence and 
confusion of " roaring Temple Bar " itself, that the fancy 
dwells most fondly upon forest scenery. Then and 
there it is that you realize in imagination, though not, 
alas ! in vision, the exquisite aspirations of the poet : — 
" In the leafy forest, 

By the murmuring stream, 

Let me lay my weary head and 

Dream ! dream ! dream ! 



T2 2 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

Gentle Bard, thou child of nature, 

With thy heart's full glow, 
' Wert thou made in life to struggle ? ' 

Ah ! no ! no ! 

Sordid thoughts o'er Mammon brooding, 

Bidding honor cease ; 
Malice fell and loud contention ! 

Peace ! peace ! peace ! 

Hollow fraud and deep designing 

Dead to Brother's woe, 
Cruel rank, more cruel riches ! 

Go ! go ! go ! 

Gently in the leafy forest, 

By the murmuring streams, 
Let me lull my weary heart in 

Dreams ! dreams ! dreams ! " 

How delightful ! How pleasant — how passing pleas- 
ant it would be to have nothing else than this to do and 
to be well paid for doing it ! A strange thought it is 
when gazing on a great city, to revert, if not in memory at 
least in fancy, to the time when that mighty aggregation 
of human dwellings was a forest primeval. His Royal 
Highness, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, plunges us in a 
sea of mystic reveries when he stands upon the stage 
like a melancholy human cypress, and calls upon us to 
trace in imagination the noble dust of Alexander till we 
find it stopping a bung-hole ! A wild conceit, truly, and 
full of mournful meditation ; but would it be less a 
romantic effort of intellect to remount the river of time 
and recall the days when Ludgate Hill was as desolate 
as Dartmoor ? Yet such days there once were. When 
the postman, with his smart double-knock, was as yet 
undreamt of — when the express-train, that consummate 
triumph of science, was still deep in the womb of time 



TOWN TREES AND COUNTRY TREES. 12 $ 

— when sunbeams, busy with painting roses, had not as 
yet been impressed into the service of painting portraits 
— and when the electric telegraph had not even struck a 
poet's fancy as the creation of imagination picturing the 
impossible, that was the time when Ludgate Hill was in 
the country, and they who climbed its peaceful breast were 
free of mountain solitude ! That was the time when 
deep and solemn masses of foliage crowned the summit 
of the eminence and the trees were resonant with their 
melodious denizens ;' that was the time when silver dew 
still sparkled on the grassy carpet — when the fox glove 
set up its tapers from the cleft of the stone — when the 
blue dragon-fly rocked itself on the long blades of grass 
— when the butterfly winged its golden flight from daisy 
to honeysuckle, and the bee hummed her busy paeans in 
the blossoms of the linden. Ah ! well may we say it, 
"nous avons change tout cela." Lindon and London go 
well in sound, but very ill in sense. Ludgate Hill is 
now in the city, and sad is the change that has come 
over its destiny. For shepherd's crooks we have now 
the whips of cabmen and omnibus drivers ; we have 
exchanged the song of the nightingale for the insolent 
chirps of the sparrow ; for bees, we have beetles ; for 
butterflies, we have " blacks ; " and for silver dew we 
have a filthy yellow fog. But our human sympathies 
are not to be thus summarily dealt with. " The feelings 
can't be smothered like royal children in the Tower," 
as one of Dickens' heroes has profoundly observed, and 
like the man in Xenophon who had two souls — a soul 
for right and a soul for riot, even amid the tumult of 
traffic and the ceaseless din of commerce our hearts are 
touched to think of the placid joys of external nature, 
and our ears are still finely attuned to the harmonies of 



124 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

wood and wave. There is something pathetically ludi- 
crous in the fondness with which we still cling to the 
word "garden," as applied to the filthiest and most dis- 
gusting purlieus in London. That phrase is associated 
in our fancy with all that is most radiant in color, and 
freshest and most delicious in perfume ; but how are 
these expectations realized in such parterres as Hatton 
Garden, Covent Garden, Savile Garden, or Baldwin's 
Gardens, where tulips are represented by paving-stones, 
lamp-posts supply the place of geraniums, chimney-pots 
do duty for roses, and the exhalations from the sewers 
are substitutes for the south wind " breathing o'er a bed 
of violets ? " To give the name of " garden " to such 
unlovely localities is, indeed, a bitter mockery. But the 
saddest satire of all is a tree in the streets of London. 
The destinies of country and of city trees are strikingly 
dissimilar; and as there is something happy beyond 
expression in the former, so is there something unspeak- 
ably mournful in the latter. It is scarcely possible to 
imagine anything in nature more joyous than a country 
tree. Planted in a spot where sun and zephyr are alike 
of easy access to it, tossing its tassels in the air and 
flinging its green flags to the breeze, it is as beautiful 
an embodiment of life, joy, and happiness as vision can 
realize or fancy depict. From the roots to the tips of 
its very leaves there is such a singular interleaving and 
budding — such a peculiar transition of colors and shapes, 
as can with difficulty be described by pen or pencil. 
The waving outline of a tree is in itself one of the love- 
liest objects in nature ; and when the breeze rushes like 
a spirit of life through the branches, and the light of the 
sun streams through the delicate curling leaves, rising 
and sinking like a finely-woven net of azure — language 



TOWN TREES AND COUNTRY TREES. 125 

is powerless to mark the never-ending, ever-changing 
play of lines and lights with which nature enchants and 
ever surprises us anew. " Masses of cypress in long 
avenues have an imposing effect," says Dr. Hermann 
Masius ; " they likewise, whether isolated or in clumps, 
form a magnificent ornament for the front of palaces, 
where they gain in real artistic importance in proportion 
to the boldness and breadth of the horizontal lines of 
the architecture. In the neighborhood of fountains they 
possess a peculiar beauty. The rising and falling sheaf 
of water, the magic play of colors in the myriad drops 
glittering with sunbeams — the luxuriant green of moss 
and lily present here a joyous, inexhaustible fulness of 
life beside the sublime melancholy of death, silent and 
solitary. But the abrupt contrast is softened by the 
gushing murmur of the spring, which in its perfect 
rhythm of coming and going lulls the soul into a state 
of dreamy yearning." A hawthorn sparkling with blos- 
soms of white and pink, and aromatizing the winds that 
dally with it, is also a beautiful object. And, oh ! what 
a fairy picture when the hoar-frost hangs its diamonds 
on the dusky crown of the fir ! But this must be in the 
country. Fir and hawthorn have the same heart-broken 
aspect in the society of lamp-posts ; and a cypress in a 
city churchyard looks like a vegetable sweep. There is 
a tree in Cheapside whose destiny is sufficiently misera- 
ble to engage in its behalf the sympathies of the civil- 
ized world. It stands and has stood for years — unhap- 
py vegetable ! — at the corner of Wood Street, where it 
has witnessed in its lifetime more of row and bother 
than would suffice for the experience of a whole forest. 
Its branches are gaunt and haggard, its leaves are 
crumpled and begrimmed with soot, its trunk is lean 



! 2 6 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

and scraggy, and the smoke of ten thousand chimneys 
has made its bark as black as your shoe. Little with 
ered twigs are continually falling from it, and its leaves 
resemble the papillotes of a slatternly maid of all work. 
Sooty sparrows perch about its creaking branches, and 
rascally town-bred crows were for years accustomed to 
build their nests upon its topmost boughs. But the 
crows have had at last the good taste to move into 
country quarters. Humboldt says of trees that " there 
is in them an expression of longing beyond belief when 
they stand so firmly planted and with so circumscribed 
a sphere of action, while with their tops they move as 
far as they are able beyond the boundary of their roots. 
I know nothing in nature so formed to be a symbol of 
longing ? " If this be so, how tragic is the destiny of that 
unlucky tree in Cheapside ! for though its aspirations 
be with the stars, its conversation is with the chimney- 
pots. There is not a day I see that tree that I do not 
feel inclined to address it in the words of Lear to the 
Earl of Kent in the stocks : " What's he that hath so 
much thy place mistook to set thee here ? " And indeed 
it is to be wished that the lot of this unhappy vegetable 
could attract the sympathy of public writers. Poets, 
who scruple not to sacrifice common sense to the ex- 
igencies of their rhetoric when singing the sorrows of 
" An Old Arm Chair," might surely spare a tear for a 
living creature, and the most hapless of all living crea- 
tures — the tree in Cheapside. 






;< cheek:* 127 



" CHEEK." 

" /"""HEEK— The side of the face below the eye." 
^ Such is Doctor Johnson's arid definition of one of 
the most delightful and suggestive words in the English 
language. Taken in a merely physical sense woman's 
cheek is enchanting to behold, yet more so to kiss ; 
taken in a metaphorical sense, woman's " cheek " is 
simply the most marvellous thing in creation. It is 
lofty as the sky, profound as the sea, boundless and 
illimitable as space. It is worthy of remark that the 
word " Cheek " has a talismanic influence on poets, 
invariably awakening them to strains of sweeter melody 
and more exalted eloquence. The immortal aspiration 
of Romeo, that he were a glove upon Juliet's hand, 
that he might touch her cheek, is a pretty and fanciful 
thought which will everywhere find ready acceptance 
with lovers and glovers, but its splendor pales in com- 
parison with the magnificent exclamation of the Monta- 
gue on viewing the senseless body of his mistress :— 

" Thou art not conquered ! Beauty's ensign yet 
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, 
And death's pale flag is not advanced there." 

Very sublime, too, and altogether worthy of Shakspeare 
is the famous simile : — "Her beauty hangs upon the 
cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear." 
Indeed, when we come to analyze that idea, and to think 
of the greater effulgence which even a diamond of the 
first water would acquire from contrast with the dusky 
ear of an Ethiopian woman, we are compelled to admit 



I2 S ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

that no finer or more expressive metaphor can possibly 
be found in the whole range of poetry, whether ancient 
or modern. There are four lines of verse whose parent- 
age I have never been able to trace, but which I would 
rather have written than dine with the Lord Mayor : — 

" Daughter of the rose, whose cheeks unite 
The differing titles of the red and white, 
Which heaven's alternate beauty well display 
The blush of morning and the milky way." 

I have never yet had enough of pancakes, nor do I 
suppose that I ever shall ; but I do declare in all sin- 
cerity and truth that if I could conscientiously affirm 
that I am the author of those lines I would not surrender 
the glory of such a boast for all the pancakes ever fried. 
The very thought of a lady's cheeks sufficed to inspire 
Dr. John Donne, but an indifferent bard on ordinary 
occasions, to such flights of fancy as would have done 
no dishonor to the most illustrious poet. Take for ex- 
ample, these noble verses on Mrs. Drury : — 

" We understood 
Her by her sight ; her pure and eloquent blood 
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought 
That one might almost say her body thought." 

Every one forms his own ideal of supreme beauty. 
Mine is a woman with cheeks plump and red as a pair 
of pulpit cushions. Such cheeks look uncommonly well 
upon the male face also. My Apollo is a man of whom 
it may be said, in the words of the old song, that 

" He's tall and he's straight as the popular tree, 

And his cheeks are as red as the rose, 
And he looks like a squire of high degree 
When dressed in his Sunday clothes." 



■ CHEEK." 



129 



The " damask cheek " of the young woman who never 
told her love, but let concealment prey upon it " like a 
worm i' the bud," must have been beautiful to behold ; 
but such young women are rare to find now-a-days. I 
know a girl — But there ! the least said is the soonest 
mended. But most assuredly she is a damsel of whom 
we may sing in the words of Gray — 

" O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move 
The bloom of young desire — the purple light of love." 

She loves, sweet pet, and cares not who knows it ; nor 
need she, for she is as good as gold. " Bold in her face 
and fayre and red of hew," — to quote the words of 
Chaucer, and there is no more blameless girl within the 
four seas of England. She is too good for me, so a 
better man may have her and welcome. 

" Who can curiously behold 
* The splendor and the sheen of beauty's cheek, 
Nor feel the heart can never all grow old ? ' " 

asks a poet, once in great renown. And, indeed, beauty's 
" cheek " is wonderful in more senses than one. A 
friend of mine — a parson — labors under a strange in- 
firmity of vision and memory, which incapacitates him 
from distinguishing between any two women. To him 
they are all alike. In this distressing state of circum- 
stances his wife hit on the ingenious expedient of stick- 
ing a wafer on one of her cheeks in the hope that he 
might thus be enabled to know her from any other 
member of her sex. It may hardly be believed, but it is 
none the less true, that even this precaution has not 
prevented her husband from falling into the mistake of 
occasionally kissing the wrong woman, an error which 
9 



j 3 o ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

he seems rather to relish. " My dear," he said to his 
wife the other day, " I have no words to express my ad- 
miration of your cheek." " My cheek, indeed ! " ex- 
postulated the indignant lady, "your own is past 
endurance." But this anecdote is a digression. Having 
discoursed thus eloquently upon " cheek " in its physical 
? Unification, let us now consider it in its figurative 
meaning. How the word ever came to be used as a 
synonym for impudence, audacity, or effrontery is a mys- 
tery for philologists to solve. Suffice it to say that it 
is notoriously susceptible in popular parlance of that 
interpretation ; and that so interpreted it is probably 
the most precious gift ever bestowed by Nature upon a 
human being, be that being man or woman. The man 
who has not " cheek " will never get on. He hardly 
deserves to be accounted a man at all. He is no better 
than a mouse. The woman who has not " cheek " — But 
where's the use of talking ! there is happily no such 
woman. I have written upwards of 700 sonnets on my 
Belinda's cheek, in the material import of the phrase ; 
but if I were to take to writing sonnets on her " cheek " 
in the symbolical sense, I might do nothing else all the 
days of my life, though I should live to the age of 
Methusaleh. I have not the slightest doubt that a lady 
I know could find it in her conscience to knock at Buck- 
ingham Palace or Windsor Castle and ask our Sovereign 
lady the Queen for the loan of the crown, ball, and 
sceptre. Having got them — supposing such a thirig 
possible — a sudden access of bashfulness would prob- 
ably supervene and she would be ashamed to return 
them. 

I never yet met a woman who could tell even a fib. 
They don't know how, bless their veracious hearts ! — 



" CHEEK." 



131 



they would not understand how to set about it. Byron 
is no longer read. So at least the critics tell us, and I 
ardently hope they are right. He dpes not deserve to 
be read. His works ought to be burnt in the market- 
place if only on account of this infamous triplet in Don 
Juan : — 

" Now what I love in women is they won't 
Or can't do otherwise than lie, and do it 
With such a grace that truth seems falsehood to it." 

A more scandalous libel upon the sex was never 
penned since pens were first invented. My experience 
of women is that they are incomparably more truthful 
than men. But if more truthful, they are also more 
cheeky. Man's cheek is at best but a poor pitiful thing 
in comparison with woman's. I do believe that there 
are women who could wheedle the whisky out of your 
punch, or " steal the shoe off a racing horse," as Petro- 
nius Arbiter ingeniously suggests. And yet men have 
done some cheeky things before now. There is no 
denying that cheek is indispensable for prosperity in the 
world. Without it, be your worth what it may, you have 
not a chance of getting on. Modest merit seeks the 
shade, and, as surely as it does, it is left there. " Fortune 
favors the brave," which means the cheeky, and no as- 
piration is more essential to success in life than that of 
the Scotchman in the play, " May Heaven grant us a 
gude conceit o' oursels ! " 



132 



ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 



ON THE PLEASURES OF BEING MAD. 

\ \ THAT a pleasant thing it must be to be mad ! 
From this rapturous reflection melancholy mad- 
ness must, of course, be excluded. Insanity of that 
kind is indeed a deplorable affliction, and may Heaven 
in its mercy avert it from all whom we love ! Nor is 
there much enjoyment to be derived from that sort of 
madness which, blowing from the " Nor'-nor'-East," 
leaves a man wise enough to know "a hawk from a 
handsaw," when the wind is southerly. Such was Ham- 
let's lunacy, and a pretty kettle of fish he made of it. 
" Insaniunt omnes." We are all of us mad in a certain 
sense ; but madness of that partial type tends rather to 
discomfort than felicity. The man who, having in his 
pocket twopence to buy a broom withal, and in his arm 
strength enough to use it, is yet so crazy in his aspira- 
tions after royalty that he would rather be King of 
Spain than a crossing-sweeper in Pall Mall, is a lunatic 
who goes about with his life in his hand, and whose 
hand will be found empty one of these fine days — 

" Oh ! silly, silly Don Alphonso, 
I really wonder how you can go on so ! " 

Then, again, there are people in private life who, 
though sane enough on all other points, are yet per- 
petually prompted to go mad upon some one particular 
question, in respect of which they act in a manner alike 
injurious to their own happiness and that of their neigh- 
bors. Persons of this semi-delirious class are everlast- 



ON THE PLEASURES OF BEING MAD. I33 

ingly getting into some dismal dilemma. They will 
sing, though they have neither voice nor ear ; ride, 
though they hardly know a horse from a cow ; row, 
though they scarcely know a boat from a washing-tub ; 
spend their money like water, though when their cash is 
gone, they will have no other refuge than the work- 
house ; drink Vienna beer or South African sherry ; 
and undertake the management of other folks' business, 
though they lack the wit to keep their own straight. 
To this nondescript class belonged the lady of whom 
Pope has sung — 

" But some strange graces and odd flights she had, 
Was just not ugly and was just not mad.'* 

Such people are to be pitied, not envied. No. As 
in learning, so in lunacy, you must drink deep or taste 
not the Pierian spring. When Dryden uttered the im- 
mortal saying, " There is a pleasure, sure, in being mad, 
which none but madmen know," he had in view not 
your poor half-and-half lunatic, of whom all that can 
be said is that he has "a tile loose," or that he 
hasn't got " all his change," or that he hasn't " all 
his buttons on," or that there is " a bee in his bonnet," 
but your out-and-out Bedlamite, who is stark, staring 
mad, as mad as a March hare, or as mad as that match- 
less type of insanity, " in excelsis" a hatter. I am cred- 
ibly assured, having made special inquiry on the sub- 
ject, that Messrs. Lincoln and Bennett and Mr. Christy 
are simply the three happiest men in London ; and as 
for our four-legged fellow-creatures, what being that ever 
trod the earth can be half so happy as a hare in the 
month of March ? Whether a hare chews the cud or 
not is little to the purpose. No doubt he cud (could) 



134 ERRATIC ESSAYS. . 

if he chose, as the old joke goes. Anyhow, chewing or 
not chewing, he is the. gayest, nimblest, j oiliest little 
creature under the sun ; and never is he so gay as when 
hopelessly bereft of reason, intelligence, or instinct (call 
it what you will) in the delightful month of March. 
" There are," says Locke, " degrees of madness as of 
folly — the disorderly jumbling of ideas together in some 
more, in some less." In a March hare it is " more," 
not less, and the result is glorious. The vernal fresh- 
ness of the air, its pure, bluff, pungent quality, has an 
ecstatic effect upon the hare, exhilarating his spirits in 
a marvellous manner, and so " jumbling " his ideas that 
he attains the very zenith of joyous and irresponsible 
insanity. How he speeds along to be sure ! The wind 
is hardly so swift. And how picturesque is the scud of 
his j;ail as he races with dazzling celerity over meadow 
and mountain, moss and moor! People who hanker 
after humanity, and think it a fine thing to be a man, 
would probably prefer to be a hatter rather than a 
March hare, but I am not of the number. True, there 
are people who have tried before now to make a " hare " 
of me, but they have not gone about it in the right way. 
There is no use in their trying to make a January or 
February hare of me. Let them make a March hare 
of me, and they will do me the greatest service imagin- 
able. The next pleasantest thing to being a hare of 
that epoch, or a hatter all the year round, is assuredly 
to be a poet, for your true poets are the wildest of mad 
men — 

" The dog-star rages ; nay, 'tis past a doubt 
All Bedlam or Parnassus is let out ; 
Fire in each eye and papers in each hand, 
They rave, recite, and madden round the land." 






ON THE PLEASURES OF BEING MAD. I35 

I don't remember to have ever met a man more ec- 
statically happy than the poet in whose company I had 
the good fortune to travel from London to Lowestoft 
on Saturday last. What nonsense he did talk to be 
sure, and what delight he took in talking it! His 
verses, which he repeated to me with the fluency of a 
mountain river after heavy floods, were the veriest rub- 
bish, the arrant "rot," that it ever entered into 
the most disordered brain of moon-struck humanity to 
concoct. But what of that ? To him they were sub- 
lime as the most inspired utterances of Homer or Shake- 
speare ; nay, much more so, for he assured me with the 
utmost solemnity that both these immortal " bards" were 
" duffers " — that was his very phrase — and that he alone 
of all men, living or dead, had ever written a line of 
genuine poetry. Furthermore, he assured me that he 
was both the King of England and the Pope of Rome, — 
a strange combination of dignities ; that he owned the 
sun, the sea, and the moon, and the Great Eastern 
Railway ; that he had only to say the word and the 
train in which we were travelling would be transformed 
into a baboon ; and that he was the Queen's mother 
and the Prince of Wales' uncle. I could not quite 
understand how he made out this marvellous relation- 
ship, but he established it to his own complete satis- 
faction, and evidently derived supreme pleasure from 
the thought of his illustrious and eccentric lineage. 
There was no cloud of sorrow or solicitude upon his 
brow. Who he was or what was his social position, I 
have not the least idea, but he looked and dressed like 
a gentleman, had plenty of money — as he proved to me 
by the frequent exhibition of his well-filled pocket-book 
— and was to all appearance without a care in the 



1 3 6 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

world. He sang very well indeed ; danced about the 
carriage on the lightest and most fantastic of toes ; and 
continually made remarks which forcibly reminded one 
of Polonius's criticism upon Hamlet's conversation — 
" How pregnant sometimes his replies are ! a happiness 
that often madness hits on which reason and sanity 
could not so prosperously fee delivered of." For ex- 
ample, he laughed uproariously at the notion of Mr. 
Gladstone, tired of politics, taking to polemics by way 
of recreation in his old age, and observed that that 
highly-gifted personage would be much better employed 
in his favorite pastime of cutting down trees than in 
setting Christians of various denominations by the ears. 
He told me that he meant to write to the People's Wil- 
liam on the subject, and that he would turn that splen- 
didly-gifted individual into a grass-hopper if he did not 
mend his ways. Altogether, my strange fellow-traveller 
reminded me not unfrequently of that witty Bedlamite 
who, being asked by Tom Brown, oi.The London Spy, 
why he had not* married the woman for whom he had 
gone mad, replied, with a waggish wink, "Ah! no; I 
am mad enough in all conscience, but not quite so mad 
as that comes to." There is a good story, too, about 
a merry little maniac who was asked to explain how it 
was he had come to be imprisoned. " Well," said he, 
"it happened thus: I am the only sane man in the 
world. Everybody else is mad ; but as they make the 
majority, and I am in a glorious minority of one, they 
have taken a mean advantage of me and locked me up ; 
but I am happier than all the rest put together. I de- 
spise them." How pleasant — how passing pleasant — it 
must be to eat of the "insane root," which, as Banquo 
assures us, " takes the reason prisoner," and to find that 



ON THE PLEASURES OF BEING MAD. 



*37 



it transports one into an imaginary world, unvexed by 
the worries of our work-a-day existence. If you would 
see true happiness visit a lunatic asylum. There will 
you find monarchs who have the splendors of royalty 
without its cares ; heroes who have the pomp and cir- 
cumstance of glorious war without its perils ; dunces 
who are wits, scholars and orators without the fatigue 
of mental culture ; and paupers who, without a shilling 
in the world, deem themselves, and so deeming, are, to 
all intents and purposes, richer than the Rothschilds 
and the Barings. 

" They jest : their words are loose 
As heaps of sand, and scattered wide from sense, 
So high they're mounted on their airy thrones." 

Never shall I forget the millionaire with whom I had 
financial negotiations in a county asylum one day that 
I visited that noble institution some few years ago. 
He was a droll little fellow, as round as a water-butt, 
with very curly hair and piercing grey eyes as sharp as 
gimlets. Coming up to me with the blandest imagin- 
able smile, he shook me by the hand with as much cor- 
diality as though he had known me from my birth. He 
asked me my name and profession. I told him both. 
You should have seen the look of mingled pity and 
contempt with which he surveyed me from head to 
heels. "A literary man, indeed ! Then you must be 
as poor as Lazarus. I dare say you haven't three 
halfpence in the world." I replied that I believed I 
could manage to muster that number of coins, but that 
he was right enough in supposing that I was not a rich 
man. " I should think not, indeed. Why, you look as 
if you hadn't half enough to eat. But I dare say you 



1 38 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

have a wife and nineteen children ? " I answered em- 
phatically in the negative. " Ah ! well," he rejoined, 
" it is all the better for the wife and the children that 
you have neither ; but you're as poor as a rat, that's 
very certain, for I never knew a literary man who 
wasn't ; but, never mind, come along with me and I 
will get you out of the cold." I followed him to a desk 
near the window. He took pen and paper, and there 
and then wrote me out a check for ,£5,000,000 sterling 
upon the Governor and Company of the Bank of Eng- 
land. " Take that, old boy," he said, " and be sure 
that you make them pay you in gold, for their ' flimsies ' 
are only fit to light your pipe with. Good-bye ! When 
you want a million or two drop me a line." I thanked 
him heartily and off he went. But mark the craft of 
the man. I was in eager conversation with the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, the Emperor of all the Russias 
and King Nebuchadnezzar, when I felt a gentle tap 
upon my shoulder. Turning round I saw my bene- 
factor. He winked slyly, and with finger on his lip 
beckoned me mysteriously into a corner. " Look here," 
he said, when I had followed him to his retreat ; " the 
richest men in the world may be in temporary want of 
cash. That is my case. I think I understood you to 
say you had a matter of three halfpence about you. 
Lend it to me, and you shall have interest at the rate of 
10 per cent, per annum." Dazzled by the prospect of 
so profitable an investment, I lent him the money. 
Beaming and blooming all over with happiness, my 
little friend bounded off like an antelope (fat,) and 
from that day to this I have never laid eyes upon him. 
Nor have I heard anything about either my principal 
or my interest. " Ah ! " thought I to myself, " how 



ON THE PLEASURES OF BEING MAD. 



139 



many men there be in full possession of their senses 
who are not half so happy as that hair-brained but 
sunny-hearted financier ! " No wonder that confirmed 
madmen live to great ages. " They dwell," observed 
to me the physician of a celebrated asylum, " in an 
ideal world of their own. Take them out of it ; restore 
them to reason ; let them see life as it really is and the 
sight would kill them. They would die in four and 
twenty hours." It is worthy of remark that — except, 
perhaps, in the case of poor Ophelia and one or two 
others who are the martyrs of melancholia — people 
who go mad upon the stage are always the merrier for 
their madness. It is " de rigueur " that a demented 
woman shall come on in a garland of straw, and tear it 
to pieces before she goes off. She invariably laughs 
and dances, and looks as radiant as a sunbeam. 
" There," exclaims Mr. Puff in The Critic, when Tilbur- 
ina has thus demeaned herself to the infinite enjoyment 
of the audience, " could you ever wish to see anybody 
madder than that." A white dress is also essential to 
lunacy, and with reference to the more or less haughty 
airs that the insane assume, whether upon the stage or 
in real life, it has been observed, drolly enough, that 
some people go mad in white muslin, others in white 
satin. But whether in muslin or satin their happiness 
appears to increase according as — to quote the tall 
language of Mr. Gladstone — " they rise higher into the 
regions of transcendental obscurantism." The reason 
why the mad must of necessity be happier than the sane 
is, that the latter are subject to those sad vicissitudes of 
fate of which the former know nothing. Bankruptcy, 
whether national or personal, and the long train of sor- 
rows consequent on the loss of friends, the perfidy of 



1 40 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

foes, and the malignant freaks of destiny are powerless 
to sadden the soul of him who has made unto himself 
a fantastic empire, where he rules with undisputed 
sway. It is the sane who are hurt by the slings and, 
arrows of outrageous fortune. Your intrenchant lunatic 
laughs at these things, so true is it, as already quoted, 
that, " there is a pleasure, sure, in being mad which none 
but madmen know." The reader is at liberty to draw 
what inferences he pleases respecting the mental con- 
dition of the writer. 



RAMSGATE ON HER GOOD BEHAVIOR, 

/^\H ! solitude, where are the charms that sages 
have found in thy face?" In Ramsgate. 
" What ? Ramsgate, in the Isle of Thanet ? " " Yes, 
to be sure." " You never mean it ? " " Ay, but I do." 
" What ! " you again exclaim in amazement, " Rams- 
gate, the roaring, the rollicking, the rampant ! Rams- 
gate, swarming with excursionists, nigger melodists, 
brass bands, street preachers, showmen, tumblers, 
tramps, pick-pockets and tract distributors ! Rams^ 
gate, whose streets are crowded with flies and omni- 
buses, whose sea is cut up into lanes and alleys of 
bathing machines, and whose sands are all alive with 
children and nurses ! You don't mean to tell me that 
that is the Ramsgate where the charms of solitude are 
to be found ? " " No ; I do not. I never said so. You 
take me up before I have fallen. The Ramsgate you 
depict is hateful to me as the gates of Orcus. You are 



RAMSGATE ON HER GOOD BEHAVIOR. i 4I 

talking of Ramsgate in August; I of Ramsgate in 
February. The season makes all the difference. In 
the one case Ramsgate is on the rampage, in the other 
she is on her good behavior. The difference between 
Ramsgate in August and Ramsgate in February is a^s 
nearly as possible that between Philip drunk and 
Philip sober. Having said thus much in self-defence 
in the most angelic spirit, I hope you will allow me to 
proceed upon my way without further interruption." 
The dialogue being at an end, suppose we glide with 
equal grace and celerity into the narrative style. For 
visitors who, loving to escape from the toil and turmoil 
of London, find enjoyment in tranquillity, there are few 
more enjoyable places than Ramsgate in winter. In 
summer it is about as odious a spot as any within the 
four seas of England ; in winter it is delightful. The 
air, always fine, is now peculiarly delicate. There is not 
a bathing-machine to be seen, nor yet a " fly " " ne musca 
quidem." There are no donkeys (four-legged) ; no 
Punches and Judies ; no organ-grinders ; no blatant 
blackguards, with ballooned cheeks, blowing their pest- 
iferous breath into bugles and trombones ; no howlers, 
with blackened faces ; no jugglers ; no cheap trains ; 
no husbands' boats ; and not many husbands. At nine 
o'clock at night you might fire a cannon down the High 
Street without hitting anybody. As for the sands — 
which Mr. Frith has celebrated in effulgent colors as the 
busiest and most turbulent scene imaginable — why you 
might walk over them for hours — even as Robinson 
Crusoe wandered along the shore of his sea-girt isle — 
and deem yourself fortunate if, like him, you should 
discern the track of one human foot. The landlords 
would seem to have the hotels all to themselves ; and 



142 



ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 



as for the lodging-houses, all that need be said is, that 
if you would learn how to • spell the word " Apart- 
ments," here you may be sure to acquire the knowledge. 
This is just the place after my heart. If you want a 
rpw stay in London, there you may have the finest row 
on earth. If you want peace come to Ramsgate in the 
month of February. All is propriety and repose. A 
Quaker settlement could not be meeker or more de- 
mure. In February Ramsgate is a lamb ; in August 
she is Mr. Powell's lion fed upon balm of aniseed, and 
looking so fierce that one shudders to think of her. 
Everything around you now bespeaks calm comfort. 
There is nothing to shock your nerves, nothing to dis- 
turb your equanimity. The Marquis of Hertford, to be 
sure, who inherits a title redolent of virtue, would do 
well not to walk through Queen Street, lest he should 
faint at the sight of a waxen young woman a-lacing of 
her stays in the window of a milliner's shop known as 
Granville House ; but everybody is not so fastidious as 
the noble marquis. The lady in question is a very fas- 
cinating personage, and the only pity is that she is not 
flesh and blood instead of wax. But let not, the Lord 
Chamberlain come near her lest she should melt in the 
fire of his righteous indignation. Uailleurs respecta- 
bility reigns supreme in Ramsgate, and everything 
is precisely as it should be. Upon the western cliff is 
a notification, welcome as the flowers of May, to the 
effect that, " for the safety of children and the comfort 
of persons " (children, it is to be presumed, are not 
persons) " using the promenade, any one riding upon a 
bycicle will be prosecuted with the utmost rigor of the 
law." There is no danger, therefore, of your being 
run over by Mr. Lowe, M. P., or of your even being 



RAMSGATE ON HER GOOD BEHAVIOR. 



143 



obliged to gaze at the awful spectacle of that eccentric 
statesman mounted upon his iron steed. Happiness is 
negative as well as positive, and the mere conscious- 
ness that you are anywhere on earth when there is no 
chance of seeing Mr. Lowe is in itself an abundant 
source of felicity. 

What gladdens the heart not a little in revisiting a 
country place, and more particularly a seaside resort, 
after an absence of a year or two, is to observe how 
well the people look. Unlike us poor Londoners, who 
change month by month, country people seem only to 
grow mellower and more mature after the lapse of a 
few years. They are still hale and hearty, and seem 
little, if anything, the worse for the wear. There is my 
friend Mr. Watson, the riding-master — (I call him my 
friend, because I have never spoken to the man in my 
life ; and if I were to speak to him, it is like enough we 
might not be friends ; ) but there, I repeat, is my friend 
Mr. Watson, the riding-master, whom I have known by 
sight since I was the height of a bee's knee — or higher ; 
and he still looks as fresh as a two-year old. He is as 
straight as a steeple, and has as good a seat as ever. 
The Town Crier has a cold in his nose. He has never 
been without one, as far as my experience of him goes, 
and it is more than probable he never will be. His con- 
fidential communications with himself, uttered in tones 
of the softest soliloquy, as he stands, bell in hand, 
at the corner of the streets still, as of old, appear 
to cause him the keenest internal satisfaction. I should 
so like to be a bell-man ! Then, again, there is the 
Harbor Master. How pleasant and genial he looks ! 
as well indeed he may, being the Master of so beauti- 
ful a harbor. He grows stouter, decidedly stouter. I 



144 



ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 



should think that he is now like one of the morning 
papers, " permanently enlarged, " and, to judge from 
his cheery expression, and bright, florid complexion, I 
should not wonder if, like a brilliant journal of ubiqui- 
tous renown, he had "the largest circulation in the 
world." Anyhow, he looks uncommonly well, which is 
the more to be wondered at, " like seeing that right in 
front of his house is a pillar which a big bully lifts its 
head and lies." Morning, noon and night the Harbor 
Master is doomed to gaze upon the obelisk erected by 
the inhabitants and visitors of Ramsgate, " as a grate- 
ful record (so runs the inscription) of the gracious con- 
descension of his Majesty, George IV., in selecting that 
as his port of debarkation," when he was going to visit 
his kingdom of Hanover. One can easily understand 
why any port should be grateful to George IV., for hav- 
ing gone away from it, but when we proceed to read 
that the people of Ramsgate also reared the pillar in 
testimony of their thankfulness for " his happy return," 
we are lost in amazement and indignation. It is to be 
hoped that our friend the Harbor Master was not taught 
Latin at school, or that if he were he has forgotten all 
about it ; for, bad as the English inscription on the 
Obelisk is, the Latin which is upon the side nearest to 
the Master's dwelling, is still worse. Fancy an honest 
man being unable to walk out of his hall-door without 
finding these words staring him in the face : — Regi illus- 
trissimi Georgio quarto, quem sui unice colunt venerantur 
alieni, or, in the vernacular, " In honor of the most il- 
lustrious monarch George IV., whom his own subjects 
regard with peculiar love, and foreigners with venera- 
tion ! " And this of one of the worst and most despi- 
cable men who ever disgraced humanity — a man of 
whom Moore wrote in verse true as scathing : — 



RAMSGATE ON HER GOOD BEHAVIOR. 145 

" But go ! 'twere vain to curse, 
'Twere weakness to upbraid thee, 
Hate couldn't wish thee worse 
Than guilt and shame have made thee." 

If obelisks, teeming with eulogy, are to be raised to 
Vice, what are to be the rewards of Virtue ? I beg leave 
most respectfully to suggest that the present inscriptions 
be forthwith erased, and that in their place be substi- 
tuted a modest statement to the effect that the purpose 
of the obelisk is to testify the gratitude of the inhabi- 
tants and visitors of Ramsgate to the Town Crier for 
having kept the secrets of the town so honorably for so 
many years. If this proposal be not carried out, the 
next best thing would be to take the pillar down alto- 
gether, and cut it up into mile-stones. With its present 
mean and mendacious utterances, it is a disgrace to the 
town. The basin is full of shipping, but the harbor it- 
self is but thinly tenanted with vessels. The process 
of dredging would seem to have been discontinued for 
the present, and at low water it is but too evident that 
the policy of the people in authority may be comprised 
in the invitation, parodied from Mr. Tennyson, " Come 
into the harbor, Mud ! " At full tide the scene is as 
bright and delightful as ever, and still, as of yore, the 
west side of the pier is the favorite promenade. Bevies 
of beautiful girls are to be seen walking there, and it 
would astonish you to observe how many of them wear 
their hair in a fringe across their foreheads. I am hap- 
py to say that I have at last discovered the meaning of 
this strange fashion. It has been explained to me by 
one of the loveliest women on earth — " a form of life 
and light, who seen becomes a part of sight." This 
matchless being has assured me that it is an understood 



1 46 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

thing among her. sex, and ought to be as generally known 
among ours, that a lady who wears her hair in this man- 
ner desires thereby to signify that she means to take 
time by the forelock, and to close with the very first 
offer she gets. Such is the meaning of the frontal 
fringe, and bachelors and widowers will regulate their pro- 
ceedings accordingly. When next you go to the play ob- 
serve how many fringed ladies there are in the audience. 
Procure an introduction wherever your fancy is most 
fascinated — it is no difficult matter ; and, relying on the 
forelock, be sure of success. And, a propos of plays, 
you must not suppose that the people of Ramsgate are 
without dramatic entertainment in winter. True, they 
have no theatres of their own, but, thanks to the enter- 
prise of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway 
Company, they are provided with ample means of access 
to the London play-houses. It may seem incredible, 
but it is none the less — but rather all the more — true 
on that account, that there are what are termed " theatre 
excursion trains " between Ramsgate and the metropo- 
lis. One of these started at 8.45 a.m., the other day, 
arriving in town about noon. The enthusiastic play- 
goers travelling by this conveyance might have seen the 
pantomime at the Crystal Palace in the afternoon, and 
that at Drury Lane in the evening, and leaving Ludgate 
Hill Station about midnight, might have hoped to be 
home at Ramsgate, say 3 o'clock in the morning. This 
was assuredly a smart stroke of business, and as remark- 
able an example of the pursuit of pleasure under diffi- 
culties as any on record. And be it borne in mind, to 
the credit of the railway company, that, not unmindful 
of the dear price of coal, and everything else as well, 
they have fixed the tariff at a scale so low as 7«f. 6d. for 



RAMSGATE ON HER GOOD BEHAVIOR. 



Hi 



the first-class return ticket, and $s. 6d. for the second- 
class, so that people who, though on pleasure bent, have 
" still a frugal mind," like the worthy Mrs. Gilpin, will 
find that they can combine economy with enjoyment. 
What would our forefathers have said had they been 
told that the day would come when playgoers would be 
carried from Ramsgate to the London play-houses, and 
back again — some 160 miles in all — for 3^. 6d., and 
that they would be drawing their own bed-curtains cosi- 
ly around them in three hours after the curtain had fall- 
en at the theatre ? They would have regarded the man 
uttering such a prophecy as a maniac, and would possi- 
bly have sent him to the nearest mad-house, with direc- 
tions that his head should be shaved with all possible 
expedition. 

But it must not be supposed that the residents of 
Ramsgate are compelled to go so far as London, how- 
ever cheaply or however quickly, in search of recreation. 
Though the place is placid, it is not stagnant. Lonely 
it is in mid-winter, but by no means desolate. There 
are gentle excitements worthy ot refined minds. To see 
Mr. Pearce, the poet, flying a kite upon the sands is so 
touching a spectacle of the combination of child-like 
simplicity with exalted genius that it were well worth 
while to come down here from London, though for no 
other purpose than to behold the bard thus innocently 
employed. We are irresistibly reminded of Sir Isaac 
Newton gathering pebbles on the sea-shore. Then, 
again, the Vicar illustrates his continental travels by 
means of dissolving views so artistically contrived that 
one longs for their dissolution. There are " Readings " 
for those who, not knowing how to read themselves, like 
to hear others do so, and there are " Singings " for 



1 48 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

those similarly situated in regard to vocal melody. The 
Aquarium is closed, much to the relief no doubt of the 
octopus and the sea-horse, who must have been worried 
to distraction by the frequent intrusions of Lord and 
Lady Whitechapel last autumn ; but students of zoology 
are not without subjects that will well repay their curi- 
ous examination. Live soles are to be inspected and 
even purchased every morning. I caught a cockle at 
Broadstairs yesterday. I saw a crab walking after the 
peculiar fashion of his species upon the wet sands near 
Kingsgate on Sunday morning, and on the following 
evening I bought a pot of shrimps at Mr. Banger's, in 
Pegwell Bay. No sooner had I made this purchase 
than my thoughts took a meditative turn and I began to 
philosophize. What man is there who has not wished 
to be some other creature than a man? "I would I 
were a bird ! " says the . old song. Have you ever 
" would-ed " you were a bird, sweet reader mine ? I 
know a man who is a goose, but, ungratefully oblivious 
of the fact, he still keeps "woulding" he were a bird. 
It is as though a fellow should keep shouting for his 
spectacles while they are upon his nose. Professor 
Wilson longed to be a deer of the desert, some other 
poet sighed to be an eagle on the mountain top, and one 
of Shakespeare's gentlemen talks about exchanging his 
humanity with a baboon ; but all these people shoot 
wide of the mark. They all miss the true type of 
felicity — a potted shrimp. When one looks around one 
and sees how full of sorrow and tribulation is human 
life, who would care to be a man ? Who would not 
rather be a potted shrimp. A sweeter, gentler, nobler, 
more dignified destiny, it is not in fancy to imagine, nor 
in words to express. To be a potted shrimp under any 



THE ART OF TALKING. I49 

circumstances must be exceedingly nice ; but to be a 
shrimp, potted in one of Mr. Banger's gorgeous pots, 
with a flaming picture of Ramsgate Harbor or Pegwell 
Bay upon the lid, were simply such a fate as Mausolus 
himself might envy. But, not to digress further upon 
this enchanting topic, it may suffice to say that the 
zoologist will find much to delight him at Ramsgate. 
Finally, Ramsgate has this pleasant peculiarity, that the 
piers of its harbor are respectively adapted to the comic 
and the tragic temperaments. If you feel happy, walk 
upon the east pier and rejoice in the society of the 
beautiful young women occasionally to be found there ; 
if you are moody and disconsolate, betake you to the 
west pier, where the significant words " Perfugium 
Miseris — Refuge for the Unfortunate " — are inscribed 
upon the light-house, and where the chance is as a 
thousand to one that your shadow will be your only 
companion — a companion, by the way, who, like the 
rest of the world, will be sure to forsake you when your 
dark hour comes on. Thus you will perceive that, be 
your mood of mind what it may, you can go to no better 
place than Ramsgate when, as at the present moment, 
Ramsgate is on her good behavior. 



THE ART OF TALKING. 

'HPHAT the art of conversation — an art intimately 
associated with the dignity and comfort of social 
life — should be so little studied is one of a thousand 
unaccountable things in an inexplicable world. It is 
not simply that men and women frequently speak with- 



1 5 o ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

out reflecting, but that even in cases where they may 
have reflected and adjudged rightly enough as to the 
wisdom of the words about to be uttered by them, they 
too often neglect to consider the time, place, and man- 
ner of utterance. The absolute truthfulness of a re- 
mark is no sufficient justification for it if it had been 
spoken in a harsh, ungracious tone, at an inexpedient 
moment, or under circumstances calculated to need- 
lessly hurt the feelings of the hearers. " It is ill talking 
o' hemp to one whose faither was hanged," says one of 
the personages in Sir Walter Scott's story of Rob Roy, 
and there is as much philosophy as humanity in the 
observation. Yet how often do we find that people will 
hazard the most audacious assertions, in accents the 
most galling, without ever pausing to consider how they 
may be wounding the sensibilities or shocking the preju- 
dices of their neighbors ? One man will say that he 
abhors Protestants, a second that he hates Catholics, a 
third that he execrates Jews (amongst whom, by the 
way, may be found some of the best of Christians), a 
fourth that he cannot abide the sight of a Dissenter ; 
and all these virulent persons who give free expression 
to their respective antipathies, knowing little and caring 
less, though the very person with whom they may be in. 
conversation should belong to the category thus fiercely 
denounced. Prejudice is the bane of goodfellowship, 
and the greatest possible hindrance to the flow of free 
and friendly conversation. There are, of course, occa- 
sions when a man of earnest nature and righteous pur- 
pose will at all hazards make fearless profession of his 
faith, and endure any extremity of persecution rather 
than abjure it ; but such occasions are rare in these 
days of religious liberty, and most assuredly they do not 



THE ART OF TA LKING. T 5 1 

arise at the dinner-table. A man may be honest to the 
heart's- core without being rude, and people with views 
the most antagonistic may, without any violence to con- 
science, merge their differences in genial oblivion while 
eating turtle soup or sipping "beeswing" together. 
Candor and courtesy are strictly compatible, and Virtue 
is no such tyrant as to exact from her votaries the sacri- 
fice of good manners. Here in England the tide of talk 
usually flows in a sullen, sluggish current, in places of 
public resort — railway-trains, steamboats, omnibuses, 
taverns, etc., — for the representative Saxon is chary of 
his speech before strangers, whom he generally regards 
as enemies. Reversing Shylock's policy, who had no 
objection to converse with Christians, and only refused 
to eat, drink, or pray with them, your true-born Briton 
may address his neighbor thug — " I will buy with you, 
sell with you, walk with you, and so following, but I will 
not talk with you." It is only the tocsin of the soul — 
the dinner-bell that makes men brightly loquacious. 
" An excellent and well-arranged dinner," observes one 
of the most brilliant of modern essayists, " is a most 
pleasing occurrence and a great triumph of civilized life. 
It is not only the descending morsel and the enveloping 
sauce, but the rank, wealth, wit, and beauty which sur- 
round the meats, the learned management of light and 
heat, the silent and rapid services of the attendants, the 
smiling and sedulous host proffering gusts and relishes, 
the exotic bottles, the embossed plate, the pleasant re- 
marks, the handsome dresses, the cunning artifices of 
fruit and farina ! The hour of dinner, in short, includes 
everything of sensual and intellectual gratification which 
a great nation glories in producing." How very true ! 
and what a charming picture ! But among the many 



r 52 



ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 



elements of pleasure thus eloquently enumerated, not 
the least important are " the pleasant remarks." *Table- 
talk, bright, genial, witty, good-natured, good-humored, 
is all-essential to the enjoyment of a good dinner, for 
civilized beings meet at the festive board not simply to 
eat but also to converse. In the costly viands set be- 
fore them there is exquisite provision for the palate, but 
in the conversation of the guests dwell the feast of 
reason and the flow of soul. Sectarian prejudice, party 
spirit, personal and national animosities, are fatal to 
comfortable conversation ; and the man who has not 
the grace to perceive this, or who, perceiving it, is yet 
so ill-tempered as to be unable to tone down his fierce 
dislikes to the requirements of refined society, would do 
well to stay at home and eat his dinner by himself in 
the coal-hole. One thoroughly perverse and disputa- 
tious man at a dinner-party is enough to damp the spir- 
its and upset the nerves of the whole company. He is 
sure to start an unwelcome topic, and to propound his 
views with a pugnacity of manner which will ruffle every- 
body's composure and play the mischief with every- 
body's digestion. If you have a corn in the world, he 
will find it out and trample upon it without remorse. 
Then, again, there are people who, without any tinge of 
malice, are yet so wedded to their own opinions that 
they take a strange delight in contradiction. Say what 
you will they differ from you. Sydney Smith gives ex- 
cellent advice to persons thus unhappily afflicted. " The 
habit of contradicting into which young men, and young 
men of ability in particular, are apt to fall is a habit 
extremely injurious to the powers of the understanding. 
I would recommend to such young men an intellectual 
regimen of which I myself in an earlier period of my life 



THE ART OF TALKING. 



!53 



have felt the advantage, and that is to assent to the two 
first propositions that they hear every day, and not only 
to assent to them, but if they can, to improve and embel- 
lish them, and to make the speaker a little more in love 
with his own opinion than he was before. When they 
have a little got over the bitterness of assenting, they 
may then gradually increase the number of assents, and 
so go on as their constitutions will bear it ; and I have 
little doubt that in time this will effect a complete and 
perfect cure." Some people there are who, never hav- 
ing submitted to this salutary discipline, appear to take 
a positive pleasure in challenging your every statement, 
and dissenting from any proposition, however harmless, 
that you may chance to lay down. If you venture to 
remark that Signor Salvini is great as Othello, or that 
Madame Adelina Patti was in good voice last night, 
they will either traverse the assertion with a flat nega- 
tion, or else intimate their disagreement from you in a 
tone that conveys unmistakably how much they com- 
passionate your intellect, or, rather, your want of it. If 
you like a particular picture at the Water Color Insti- 
tute, or anywhere else, they are amused to think what 
you can find in it to admire. Sir John Gilbert is harsh 
in color and slovenly in drawing; Mr. Edwin Hayes 
never can have seen the sea ; Mr. Hine knows nothing 
about the Sussex Downs ; Mr. Wymperis is " Coxy," 
nothing more ; Mr. Mogford can only paint Tantallan 
Castle ; Mr. Tenniel has not a particle of dramatic 
spirit ; and as for Mr. Charles Cattermole, he merely 
follows servilely in the footsteps of his uncle. " Quels 
grands hommes ! Rien ne peut leur plaire!" What 
great men to be sure ! Nothing can please them. 
Unlike Shakespeare's Polonius, and the " Gmculus 



'54 



ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 



esuriens " of the Roman satirist, who always agreed with 
the last speaker, these carping critics dissent from 
everybody. Like the seal, who is only comfortable in a 
storm, or the Irish tailor, whose fatigue began when he 
sat down, they abhor quiet. They never seem to be at 
ease unless when they are roughening and darkening 
that current of friendly talk which it should be the am- 
bition of every sensible and kind-hearted man to keep 
as smooth and bright as possible. Deuce take it ! 
Can't they let it pass ! The dinner table does not exact 
such solemnity of utterance as does the pulpit ; nor is 
there any need to be as punctilious in our statements 
over Burgundy or Moselle as though we were arguing a 
demurrer before a Vice-Chancellor. People of this cap- 
tious temper destroy the charm of conversation, and re- 
mind you ever of those cross-grained persons whom you 
now and then meet in the streets, and who take a queer 
delight in crossing your path. You move to the right, 
so do they ; you take the left, so do they ; you go right 
in the middle only to find yourself nose to nose with 
them ; till at last they bar your passage so effectually 
(that you have nothing for it but to give them your 
blessing, and, springing into the gutter, leave them in 
undisputed possession of the pavement which they will 
not halve with you. 

"That is the happiest conversation," observes Dr. 
Johnson, " where there is no competition, no contradic- 
tion, no vanity, but a calm quiet interchange of senti- 
ment." Just so ; but Dr. Johnson, like some other great 
sages, found it easier to preach than to practice. He 
was the veriest bear in conversation unless when he 
found it to his interest to be otherwise. He would 
brook no competition ; he gloried in contradiction ; and 



THE ART OF TALKING. j$$ 

as for his vanity, there were no bounds to it. One in- 
stance out of many will suffice, as recorded by Piozzi, 
to show how the philosopher of Bolt Court behaved in 
society, despite his benignant maxim : — " When his 
friend Mr. Strahan, a native of Scotland, on his return 
from the Hebrides, asked him, with a firm tone of voice, 
what he thought of his country ? * That it is a very 
vile country, to be sure, sir ! ' returned for answer Dr. 
Johnson. ' Well, sir,' replies the other somewhat mor- 
tified, ' God made it.' ' Certainly He did,' answers Dr. 
Johnson again ; ' but we must always remember that He 
made it for Scotchmen, and — comparisons are odious, 
Mr. Strahan — but God made hell ! ' " Could the force 
of ruffianism go further ? Yet that was the man who 
presumed to guide his fellows in the path of courtesy, 
and who meanwhile was allowed, in right of his arro- 
gance and presumption, quite as much as out of con- 
sideration for his learning and ability, to ride rough-shod 
over society. In our days he would have been chucked 
out of the window, ponderous as he might be. 

Another class of people who spoil the charm of con- 
versation are they who, in their extreme eagerness for 
display, take the good things out of your mouth, antici- 
pate the bon mot they see coming, and cut you short in 
the middle of a sentence. Such persons prefer mono- 
logue to dialogue, and would fain have all the talk to 
themselves. They disregard Dean Swift's pithy verses 
which contain the whole art and mystery of conversation : 

" Conversation is but carving ; 
Give no more to every guest 
Than he's able to digest ; 
Give him always of the prime, 
And but little at a time ; 



! S 6 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

Carve to all but just enough 
Let them neither starve nor stuff ; 
And that you may have your due 
Let your neighbors carve for you." 

Your funny man, too, is a great nuisance, the more 
particularly so, if his fun take the dismal direction of 
riddles. It will never do to laugh at him ; to frown at 
him were ill manners ; a dubious smile, a nod that may 
be anything, or some atrocious conundrum worse than 
his own is your only resource. It was my misfortune 
to sit at a supper-table the other night next to an idiot 
who, just as the lobster salad was being served around, 
had the audacity to ask me where Moses was when he 
blew out the candle. Now, that is the very first riddle 
I ever heard in my life. Whether I was short-f rocked 
when first I heard it is more than I can undertake to 
affirm ; but most assuredly I could hardly toddle before 
my nurse confided that miserable conundrum to my 
agonized ear. Nevertheless, I gave my neighbor to 
understand — Heaven forgive me ! — that his riddle came 
upon me with all the freshness of novelty, and that I 
could not for the life of me make it out. Very great, 
indeed, was his delight. " In the dark, sir ; in the 
dark ! " he exclaimed with a jubilant chuckle. I make 
no pretence to good breeding, but I plume myself upon 
my benevolence, and I make bold to assert that in thus 
treating my importunate little friend, instead of pooh- 
poohing him, or turning up my nose at him, as men of 
inferior tact might have done, I displayed social philan- 
throphy of the highest order. But there are bounds to 
the most celestial charity, and finding that my tormen- 
tor was preparing again for the charge, and that. I was 
likely enough to miss my chance of the salad once more 



THE ART OF TALKING. 



*57 



through his confounded riddles, I resolved to choke him 
off with one that was likely to stick in his throat for the 
rest of the night. " Pardon me, sir," said I, " it is my 
turn now. Allow me to ask you when is an elephant 
like a cock robin ? Think over it well and don't give 
it up in a hurry." " I won't," he replied ; and to do 
him justice he didn't. For the remainder of the even- 
ing he was lost in an abyss of thought. He sat at the 
table with knitted brow and fixed eyes in a hopeless 
reverie, and seemingly unconscious of all that was pass- 
ing around. It was not until we had all risen to depart 
that he came up to me and, in a tone of tender suppli- 
cation, observed, " I cannot guess it. I must give it up. 
Do tell me when is an elephant like a .cock robin?" 
" Never, sir ; never," I replied in accents the most em- 
phatic. You should have seen the scorn and disgust 
depicted upon his face. " He cursed me with his eyes," 
as Coleridge says. At last he found his tongue and 
gave vent to his indignation thus : It's most unfair, sir ; 
it's most unfair. It isn't a riddle at all ; it's a vulgar 
sell. I bid you good-night, sir," and so saying he snatch- 
ed up his hat and was gone. He had been a sad hin- 
drance to pleasant conversation for fully an hour, and 
would have been so to the end, had I not thrown a tub 
at the whale. An enchanting story is told of Mr. Car- 
lyle. He lately went on a visit to a friend in Scotland, 
and one day at dinner he happened to have for a neigh- 
bor one of those unhappy persons who are afflicted with 
" a plentiful lack of wit," together with a most intolerable 
amount of what that genial old parson in Bulwer Lytton's 
Caxtons calls "jabber." This inanity, who seems to 
have goaded honest Thomas to the verge of madness, 
innocently records his opinion of the philosopher, as 



I s 8 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

follows : — " Mr. Carlyle is an extraordinary man ; he is 
a perfect nobody in society ; he has no conversation ; he 
takes an interest in nothing. For half an hour I en- 
deavored to draw him out on art ; no use. Then I tried 
him on his own subjects, on literature, history, biogra- 
phy ; all to no purpose. The man has no power of 
conversation whatever. At the end of dinner, after 
being silent the whole time, he suddenly said to his host, 
1 For Heaven's sake, put me in a room by myself, and 
give me a pipe ! ' " This is delicious. It is to be hoped 
that the story is true ; but if not, the man who invented 
it ought to go on inventing others like it all the days of 
his life. 

The days are gone when, as in the time of Pope, — 

" Snuff or the fan supplied each pause of chat, 
With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that." 

Snuff is gone out or nearly so ; the fan finds but little 
favor with the modern fair ; and though singing and 
laughing happily survive, the man or woman who would 
now "ogle" in good society would be accounted a Bed- 
lamite and treated accordingly. Debarred from the 
fantastic resources to which our ancestors had access, 
there still remains to us one inexhaustible topic of con- 
versation — the weather, and as that becomes more varied 
and uncertain every year, it still supplies matter for 
endless diversity of discourse. So true is this that a 
witty essayist has described the dialogue in English 
company to consist of " a series of meteorological obser- 
vations." But, be the subject of our conversation what 
it may — the weather, politics, art, literature, or science, 
— whether we indulge in " that abominable tittle-tattle 
which is the cud that's chewed by human cattle," or 



THE ART OF TALKING. 



*59 



soaring to tragic themes discuss the sorrows and suffer- 
ings of " the unfortunate nobleman now languishing in 
prison at Dartmoor," let us bear in mind these two 
golden precepts — first to pitch our voices to a conver- 
sational key, and secondly to talk in such a spirit of 
mutual forbearance that every one may have his or her 
say. Neglect these maxims, and we shall return to the 
clamorous and chaotic days described by Spenser, — 

" Thus chatten the people in their steads, 
Ylike a monster of many heads." 

The skilful management of the voice is indispensable 
to the true enjoyment of discourse, for where every 
speaker tries to over-talk the other, conversation de- 
generates into a mere clatter of tongues. There should 
be a rule of the road in talking as driving, and nobody 
should be permitted to pass any other body on the near 
side. Fancy what the condition of Fleet Street or the 
Strand would be if there were no such law for the regu- 
lation of vehicular traffic. In the absence of a like ordi- 
nance, the vocal disorder at a dinner-table would be 
quite as terrific. Finally, but though last by no means 
least, never forget that the art of talking is that of listen- 
ing also. Indeed, there is no more flattering or more 
refined form of courtesy than that implied by a polite 
and gentle method of giving ear when others talk. 
Assume an air of interested attention, more particularly 
when it is a lady who speaks, and you will one day be 
surprised to find yourself more popular in society than 
if you were the most brilliant talker in the world. 



160 ERR A TIC ESS A YS, 



HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. 

No. i. 

"YX 7ITH (or without) your kind permission, dear 
reader, I purpose to ramble back to by-gone 
times, and devote a few essays to hard weather long, 
long ago, a theme not without a certain romantic fas- 
cination. Livy, in his Fifth Book, tells of a winter 
so severe that the river Tiber was frozen over — a very 
singular occurrence in such a climate as that with 
which Italy is blessed. Ovid, who was contemporane- 
ous with the historian, and to whose magnificent de- 
cription of the weather in the Crimea, I shall have 
occasion hereafter to refer, assures us that while he was 
in banishment at Tomni, a town in Pontus, it happened 
one year that all the rivers were locked in fetters of 
frost, and the Black Sea looked like a boundless ex- 
panse of solid marble. He saw it himself, and walked 
upon it without wetting his feet. What a magnificent 
spectacle it must have been, especially at sunrise and 
sunset! Not that the living ocean, with its stupendous 
voices ; its foaming billows its waving shadow, its feast of 
color and its flow of light may not be equally beautiful, or 
perhaps more so, but there is something which approach- 
es the sublime in the idea of traversing the face of the 
deep, while it is in this state of repose and tranquility — 
something that awes the imagination to find its mighty 
hushed, and its exuberant currents mysteriously arrested 
by that invisible power which, at another season, bids the 
winds to blow and the waves to roll and swell in uncontrol- 



HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. ^i 

led majesty. In the year 1234 the Adriatic was so frozen 
that the Venetians went over the ice in carts, and we 
have the authority of Zonoras for the statement that in 
the reign of the Emperor Constantine the Pontic Sea 
was so congealed that people for many miles travelled 
it on foot, and horses and wagons passed over the 
fretum or narrow part of it. " But withal,'.' he adds, 
" the summer following was so excessive hot and dry 
that great rivers and most fountains were wholly dried 
up, and people and cattle perished for want of water." 
In the year 821, the Rhone, the Danube, the Elbe, the 
Seine, were so solidly frozen that for thirty days those 
rivers were the great highways of their respective na- 
tions, and carriages passed as freely over them as on 
dry land. But not to carry the reader to scenes too 
distant or eras too remote, let us confine our attention 
for the present to such winters of historic severity as 
have occurred in our own country. I propose to pass in 
shivering review the most famous frosts that have 
happened in England during the last eight centuries 
— to depict the aspect of London at those periods, and 
more particularly to describe the conduct of our old 
friend " ye River of Thames " under such trying circum- 
stances. The earliest frost of which we can discover 
any mention in the old English writers as being of 
peculiar rigor, occurred in n 16. In the spring of 
that year there was, as the chroniclers assure us, " an 
eager and a nipping frost." The cold of February was 
more than compensated by the warmth of August, 
when " the river Thames was so low for the space of a 
day and a night that horses, men, and children passed 
over it betwixt London Bridge and the Tower, and also 
under the bridge, the water not reaching above theii 



1 62 ERR A TIC ESS A KS". 

knees ! " The same thing happened in Queen Elizabeth's 
time ; and though on each occasion the bed of the 
river was crossed by " horses, men, and children," it is 
to be recorded to the honor of the sex (the only sex 
worth talking about) that there is not in any historian 
the faintest allusion to justify the suspicion that any 
lady ever had the ill-taste to make the experiment. 
From 1116 to 1151 there does not appear to have been 
any frost of sufficient intensity to justify historic allu- 
sion ; but Hollinshed has recorded for the benefit of a 
shuddering posterity that " in the winter of 1152 about 
the tenth day of December it began to freese extream- 
lie, and so continued till the nineteenth of Februarie, 
whereby the river of Thames was so frosen, that men 
might pass over it both on foot and horsse-back." But 
this was not the only strange thing that happened in 
that portentous year, for we are assured on the vener- 
able authority of the same Hollinshed already alluded to, 
that at Christmas " a fish like unto a man was caught 
on ye coast of Suffolke." The reader shall have the 
story in the historian's own antique language : — " At 
Oreford, in Suffolke, a fish was taken up by fishers in 
their nets as they were at sea, resembling in shape a wild 
or savage man whom they presented to Sir Bartholomew 
de Glanville that had the keeping of the castell of Ore- 
ford in Suffolke. He was naked in all his lims resembl- 
ing the right proportion of a man and albeit the crowne 
of his head was bald his beard was long and ragged. 
The knight caused him to be kept certain daies and 
nights from the sea ; meat set afore him he greedilie 
devoured. He did eat fish both raw and sod. He 
would not or could not utter any speech, although to 
try him they hung him up by the heeles and miserably 



. HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. ^3 

tormented him ! He would get him to his couche at ye 
settine of ye sunne and rise again at ye rising of ye 
sunne." The ancient chroniclers then go on to narrate 
how he was kept for some months at " ye castell " of 
Oreford but how at last "being negligently looked to" 
and " not seeming to be regarded, he fled secretly to ye 
sea, and was never after seane nor hearde of ! " This we 
may readily believe. He was evidently " a very correct 
young person," as pious people say ; and even at this 
distance of time one cannot but commend the proprie- 
ty of his proceedings. In the year 1435, m tne ^ me 
of the sixth Henry, " the frost was so extream — begin- 
ning about the five and twentieth day of November and 
continuing till the tenth of Februarie — that the ships 
with merchandise arriving at the Thames its mouth, 
could not come up the river ; so their lading then faine 
to be discharged was brought to the city up land." 
Such and so cold was the weather that our mediaeval 
ancestors had to encounter. " First it blew and then it 
snew ; and then iVdriz and then \\.friz" as some poetical 
meteorologist phrases it. Henry VIII. did not bring 
the summer with him, for in his days also the weather 
was hard, as well as the times. In 1523, " after great 
windes and raines which chanced in that season there 
followed a sore frost which was so intense that manie 
died for cold and some lost fingers, some lost toes 
and manie lost nailes besides their fingers so extreme 
was the rigour of that frost." Nor was his daughter Eliza- 
beth fortunate in matters meteorological. Hollinshed 
has left us a brief but graphic account of the dreadful 
winter of 1565. " The one and twentyth of December 
began a frost which continued so extreamlie, that on 
the New Year's day even, people went over and 



1 64 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

alongst the Thames on the ise from London Bridge 
to Westminster. Some plaied at the foot-ball as bold- 
lie there as if it had been on the drie land ; diverse 
of ye court shot daily at pricks set upon the Thames 
and ye people both men and women went on ye 
Thames in greater numbers than in anie street 
of ye citie of London. On ye 31st day of Januarie at 
night it begun to thaw and on ye fift daie was no ise 
to be seen between London Bridge and Lambeth ; which 
sudden thaw caused great floods and high waters that 
bare downe bridges and houses, and drowned manie 
people in England, especiallie in Yorkshire ; Owes 
Bridge was borne away with others." In 1579 there 
was a felonious frost, followed by a phenomenon very 
startling in these northern latitudes, yet too authorita- 
tively attested to admit of a doubt as to its actual occur- 
rence. " The Thames over-flowed its banks and not only 
were boats rowed but fishes were caught in Westminster 
Hall." " It snowed," writes an historian who witnessed 
what he described," till the eight daie of Feb uarie, and 
frised till the tenth and then followed a thaw with 
continual rain which a long time after caused such high 
waters and great floods that the marshes and low 
grounds being drowned for the time, the water of the 
Thames rose so high in Westminster Hall that after 
the fall loads of fishes were found in the said hall." 
Unlucky fishes. Woe worth the tide that landed them 
in such a place ! It is to be hoped, however that they 
kept clear of The Court of Chancery. Better for them 
to have made at once for Billingsgate then have ven- 
tured into so perilous a region. Among the " Philoso- 
phic Transactions " of the Royal Society during that 
memorable year may be found a letter from a gentleman 



HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. j6$ 

in Bristol giving an interesting account of as 
strange a spell of weather as any on record. 
" Not exactly a frost, but a freezing rain fell about 
Bristol on the 9th, 10th, and nth of December, and 
made such destruction of trees in all the villages and 
highways from Bristol towards Wells, and towards 
Shepton Mallet, and towards Bath and Bruton, and 
other places of the west that both for the manner and 
matter it may seem incredible. Orchards exposed to 
the N.E. were devastated. I weighed the sprigg of an 
ash tree of just three-quarters of a pound, which was 
brought to my table; the ice on it weighed sixteen 
pounds, besides what was melted off by the hands of 
them that brought it ! Yet all this while, when trees 
and hedges were laden with ice, there was no ice to be 
seen on our rivers, nor so much as on our standing 
pools." He then goes on to say that some travellers 
were " almost lost " by the coldness of the freezing air 
and freezing rain. " All the trees, young and old, 
in the highway from Bristol to Shepton were so torn 
and thrown down on both sides of the way that they 
were impassable. By the like obstructions the car- 
riers of Bruton were forced to return back. Some 
were affrighted with the noise in the air till they dis- 
covered that it was the clatter of icy boughs, dashed 
one against the other by the wind. Some told me that 
riding on the snowy downs they saw this freezing rain 
fall upon the snow and immediately freeze to ice with- 
out sinking at all into the snow, so that the snow was 
covered with ice all along, and had been dangerous if 
the ice had been strong enough to bear them. Others 
were on their journey when the ice was able to bear them 
in some places, and they were in great distress." 



1 66 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

The frost which occurred in 1683-4 appears to have 
been, to the ruin of all comparison, the keenest and 
most intense that has ever been known in England. 
The frost of 1435 was °f longer duration, but it does 
not seem to have approached in severity to that of 1683. 
Rapin says that during the long frost of 1683-4, which 
began about the middle of December, and lasted till the 
middle of February, " the Thames was so frozen that 
there was another city as it were on the ice by the great 
number of booths erected between the Temple and 
Southwark, in which place was held an absolute fair of 
all sorts of trades. An ox was likewise roasted whole, 
bulls baited, and the like." A correspondent of the 
Gentleman's Magazine, writing to Mr. Urban, a century 
later, communicates the following memorandum, which 
he found in his great-grandfather's pocket-book : — " 20th 
Dec, 1683, a very violent frost began, which lasted till 
6th of Februarie, in soe great extremitie that the pooles 
were frozen 18 inches thick at least, and the Thames 
was soe frozen that a great sheet from the Temple to 
Southwark was built with shops, and all manner of 
things sold ; hackney coaches plyed there as in the 
street ; there was also bull-baiting, and a great many 
other shows and tricks to be seen. This day the frost 
broke ; in the morning I saw a coach and six horses 
driven from Whitehall almost to the bridge (London 
bridge), yet by three o'clock that day, next to South- 
wark, the ice was gone so as boats did row to and fro ; 
and the day after, all the frost was gone. On Candle- 
mas-day (2d Feb.), I went to Croydon market and led 
my horse over the ice at the ferry to Lambeth ; as I 
came back I led him from Lambeth upon the middle of 
the Thames to Whitefriars Stairs and we led him up 



HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. ^7 

them ; and this day an ox was roasted whole, over 
against Whitehall — King Charles II. with the Queene 
eat part of it." Another writer who obliged the town 
with a pamphlet entitled "Modest Observations on the 
Present Extraordinary Frost," has left some very curious 
details. " On the 23rd January, being the first day of 
term, coaches plyed at the Temple Stairs, and carried 
the lawyers to Westminster on the yce, and thencefor- 
wards the same continued, and whole streets of sheds 
everywhere built on the Thames, thousands passing, 
buying, selling, drinking, and revelling (I wish I could 
not say on the Lord's Day too), and most sorts of trades' 
shops on the yce (and amongst the rest a printing-house 
there erected), bulls baited and thousands of spectators. 
Nay, below the bridge hundreds daily pass. The river 
Humber (as I am credibly informed), where it is several 
miles broad, is frozen over, and vast flakes of yce are 
seen floating on the Downs of diverse miles in length 
and proportionable breadth." But by far the best de- 
scription of this singular event may be found in a scarce 
little book printed that same year by John Waltho at 
the Black Lyon in Chancery Lane over against Lincoln's 
Inn, entitled " An Historical Account of the late great 
Frost, in which are discovered in several comical rela- 
tions, the, various humors, loves, cheats, and intrigues of 
the town as the same were managed upon the river of 
Thames during that season." Unfortunately it is writ- 
ten with too little regard to delicacy to admit of its re- 
publication in our days, but to the philosophic mind it 
is valuable as a record of manners, customs, and opin- 
ions in an age which, though not very distant from our 
own, according to the measurement of time, was yet as 
unlike our own as any two epochs the most remote 



X 68 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

imaginable could possibly be. Our business, however, 
is less with the morality of the volume than with its 
" yce," and on this subject its information is exceedingly 
graphic. "Ye frost began about ye 16th Deer., and so 
sharply set in that in a fortnight's time or thereabouts 
ye river of Thames, though one might think by the daily 
flux and re-flux of her twice returning tide in the space 
of 24 hours and the native course of her own rapid 
streams was secured against the force of the hardest 
weather, yet this river beyond ye Bridge of London up- 
wards was all frozen over and people began to walk 
thereon and booths were built in many places where the 
poor watermen whose boats were lockt up and could not 
work thereon for their usual livelyhood made a virtue of 
necessity and therein retailed wine brandy ale and 
other liquors which for the novelty of the same very few 
but were in a short time their customers, and their 
trades increasing their booths began to increase and be 
enlarged for the reception of multitudes of people who 
daily resorted thereunto, insomuch that in a short time 
roadways were made from place to place, and without 
any fear or apprehension the same was trod by men 
women and children ; nor were the same only foot-paths 
but soon after hackney coaches began to ply upon the 
river and found better custom than if they had con- 
tinued in the streets which were never in the midst of 
business half so crowded so that the same became the 
only scene of pleasure in or about London ; the fields 
were deserted and the river full, and in Hillary Term 
which soon after ensued it was as usual for the lawyers 
to take coach by water to Westminster as through the 
Strand and so public was the river that in a short time 
it obtained the names of Frost Fair and the Blanket 



HARD WEATHER LOAG AGO. 169 

Fair. A whole street of booths contiguous each to other 
was built from the Temple Stairs to the Barge House in 
Southwark which were inhabited by traders of all sorts 
which usually frequent fairs and markets as those who 
deal, in earthenware brass copper tin iron toys and 
trifles ; and besides these printers bakers cooks butchers 
barbers coffee-men and others who were so frequented 
by the innumerable concourse of all degrees and quali- 
ties that by their own confession they never met else- 
where the like advantages every one being willing to say 
they did lay out such and such moneys on the river of 
Thames ; nor was the trade only amongst such as were 
fixt in booths, but also all sorts of cries which usually 
are heard in London streets were there. The hawkers 
with their news — the costermonger with his fruit — the 
wives with their oysters pies gingerbread and such like. 
Nor was there any recreation in season which could not 
be found there with more advantage than on land such 
as foot-ball play nine- pins cudgels bull and bear-baiting 
and others which on the occasion was more ordinary as 
sliding in skates chairs and other devizes such as were 
made of sailing-boats chariots and carrow-whimbles so 
that at one view you might behold the thriving trader 
at his shop the sporters at their recreations the labourers 
with their burdens at theii backs and every one with as 
little concern or fear as if they had trod the surface of 
the more centred element. And in all places smoking 
fires on the solid waters, roasting boyling and preparing 
food for ye hungary and liquors for ye thirsty ; eating 
drinking and rejoicing in great crowds, as Smithfield in 
Bartholemew Fare could ever boast." Those were mad- 
cap times when wit took the boisterous form of practi- 
cal joke, and the public humor displayed itself in the 



170 



ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 



most grotesque evolutions. Of the dare-devil proceed- 
ings of the "Sparks," as young men of fashion were 
then called, our author has left us a description which 
if not edifying is, at least, amusing. Thus he tells us 
how they caught a sturdy old beggar-man at Temple Bar, 
and having plied him with strong waters, compelled him 
to personate Neptune, and to ride upon the frost in a 
sledge with a tin pot on his head, and in his hand a 
pitchfork to typify the imperial trident. Old women 
who sold dumplings were obliged to stow themselves 
with their savory wares in wooden bowls, which were 
pulled along the ice at the rate of ten miles an hour, 
while country cousins were lured to spots where the ice 
had been cut away for their especial accommodation. 
Another " drollery " which the writer narrates with man- 
ifest relish, was originated by a certain scrivener, who, 
being blessed with a scolding wife, enticed her into a 
booth near the Savoy, to partake of " neats' tongue and 
a bottle ; " but no sooner had the dear unsuspecting 
soul seated herself at the table than her chair sank into 
a hole prepared for her reception, and there she was 
kept up to the chin in water until she had promised re- 
formation — a promise which, I rejoice to say, she after- 
wards violated on the incontestable pretext that it had 
been extorted from her by fraud and terror. On the 
1 2 th February, 1684, " the ice gave as it were a univer- 
sal groan and crackt into little pieces, and was in one 
tide conveyed away and carried with itself the joyful 
news of its own dissolution to our merchant ships which 
had been for two months before detained in ye Downs." 
So ended the great frost of 1684. Let us hope that we 
shall soon have another like it ! 






HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. 



No. II. 



171 



The Long Frost of 1683-4 was indeed a frost with a 
vengeance — a frost of such matchless asperity that we 
can find no analogy for it, except in the celestial attri- 
bute of charity. The witty and popular phrase, " cold 
as charity," expresses the only metaphor that can do 
justice to a season of such heartless rigor. Mrs. Com- 
modore Trunnion in Smollett's immortal romance per- 
formed her religious duties " with rancorous severity." 
Now image to yourself the expression of that worthy 
lady's face as she doled out her bounties to the poor ; 
or, to take a more modern instance, fancy the icy smile 
that stole over the parochial features of Mr. Bumble, 
when, after threatening to " call out the millingtary " on 
Oliver Twist for asking for an additional slice of bread, 
he at last consented to let the famished urchin have the 
boon he craved ; and then you may have some idea of 
the wan and spectral effect which a stray sunbeam must 
have produced as it played over the frozen bosom of 
" ye river of ye Thames." Those were indeed days, 

" When icicles hung by the wall, 
And Dick the shepherd blew his nail ; 

And Tom bore logs into the hall, 
And milk came frozen home in pail. 

When blood was nipp'd and ways were foul, 
And nightly sung the staring owl, 
' To- Who ! ' 

* To-whit ! to who ! ' a merry note, 

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot." 

Assuredly, those were cold days — cold, cold, " even 
as thy chastity," — thou lovely lady wedded to the Moor ; 



172 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

and yet one delights to read of them. It is like skating 
in imagination. One lingers lovingly on the antique 
records of that Siberian winter, and it is no easy matter 
to pass to other and less trying epochs. There lieth on 
my table an old broad-sheet, the color of Arabic saffron. 
It is entitled " A Strange and- Wonderful Relation of the 
Many Remarkable Damages sustained by Sea and Land 
from the present Unparalleled Frost." Oh, delightful ! 
" By this," says our author — and blessings on his frosty 
pole ! — " may be apprehended ye extremity of ye season ; 
a certain sexton in ye citie of London having a grave to 
make, and finding ye obdurate impenetrable earth as it 
had been a rock of soiled marble reverberate his forsible 
stroakes was therefore constrained to have two strong 
and able working men, giving each two shillings a day, 
to undertake the same, who with pickaxes, twibills, 
beetles, and wedges, and two days' hard labour did with 
great difficulty make it deep enough ; so that ye labour of 
digging only one grave did amount to eight shillings, and 
the labourers worthy of their hire." Our author goes on 
to tell what is still more remarkable, how, " solid cakes 
of ice," of some miles in extent, breaking away from the 
eastern countries of Flanders and Holland, were driven 
on the sea-cost of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk ; — how 
"it was also reported that certain skate-sliders upon one 
of these large ice-plains were unawares driven to sea and 
arrived alive upon their icy rafts at the sea-coast of 
Essex ; " — how ships in the offing had their canvas and 
cordage congealed beyond our apprehensions to imagine 
or chronologies to parallel ; " — how great cables of ships 
on the shore of Lancashire were sawed asunder by the 
sharpness of the " yce " ; — how the sea was frozen for a 
whole mile from the shore at Deal ; and finally how the 



HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. 



173 



" yce cut away most of the buoys as well in the south as 
in the north channel." " Boys will be boys," says the 
proverb ; but here was a remarkable refutation of it. 
The same writer assures us that the weather was, if pos- 
sible, still more ferocious in Scotland. " No water was 
to be had for cattel in many miles, which general com- 
plaint will need no other confirmation than from the 
tongues of ye cattel themselves, who with pitty have been 
observed to lick ye yce to abate their thirst for want of 
their fill of refreshing water." 

In the north of France the season was equally severe, 
and sixty persons are said to have died upon the road 
between Paris and Calais. It is worthy of remark that 
in the year following (1685) there were copious rains 
and terrible tempests all over England. On one night 
in particular there was a paroxysm of storm " on ye 
river of ye Thames," and contemporaneous writers 
assure us that for two hours — from two o'clock in the 
morning till four — " the waves were as high as in the Bay 
of Biscay." There was immense damage of property. 
During the remainder of the seventeenth century there 
does not appear to have been any weather of sufficient 
severity to justify particular allusion ; but the continent 
of Europe was less favorably circumstanced. In 1691 
the cold was intolerable throughout Germany, and the 
wolves, driven for shelter from the woods and forests, 
entered the streets of Vienna and attacked the passen- 
gers ! Passing over the terrific tempest of 1703 as being 
rather beside the benevolent purpose of the present 
essay, which is not so much to blow the reader's head 
off as to freeze the blood in his veins, we come to a year 
which deserves to be distinguished as " mirabilis," the 
year 1708-9, when the continent and the city of Paris 



174 



ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 



more particularly were visited by a winter as severe as 
was felt in England during our darling frost of 1683-4. 
Even in some parts of the British Isles the cold war, 
intense. Dr. Derham assures us that though during 
this frost of 1708-9 several people crossed the Thames 
at some distance above the bridge, it was only towards 
low water, when the great flakes of ice which came down 
stopped one another at the bridge till they made one 
continued bed of ice from thence almost to the Temple ; 
but when the flood came the ice broke, and was all car- 
ried with the current up the river. He further states 
that though this frost was extremely rigorous in the 
southern parts of the island, yet the northern felt little 
of it ; and he quotes a letter from the then Bishop of 
Carlisle dated " Rosa," who says *' none of our rivers or 
lakes were frozen over;" and a letter from a gentle- 
man at Edinburgh, who writes " we had not much frost 
to speak of, and it lasted not long." It was not until 
Christmas Day, 1708, that the cold was felt in London 
with anything like unusual rigor, and no sooner were 
cakes of ice seen floating on the Thames than a certain 
Dr. Partridge saw in his mind's eye the whole river as 
hard as stone, with coaches and six rattling over it at 
the rate of thirteen miles an hour, and an ox being 
roasted as in the halcyon days some twenty years agone, 
over against Whitehall : — 

" Methinks I see the Thames as hard as stone, 
And beaux and ladies safely walk thereon. 
Methinks I see a lawyer in his gown 
A picking up of damsels who fall down. 
Methinks I see the tents and booths of sin 
Too full of fools — no wise men can get in ; 
While Dumpy Dutchmen with their clumsy mates 
Teach English madmen how to slide with skates. 






HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. ^5 

Methinks I see so much of knavish vice 

As if May Fair was kept upon the ice. 

Bulls, cows, and sheep are brought to please the crowd, 

And worser beasts by far are there allowed." 

It is clear that our Doctor was somewhat censorious, 
and deemed his fellow creatures no better than they 
should be. His allusion to men as " worser beasts " 
than the so-called " lower animals," calls to mind Mr. 
Planchd's charming old burlesque of Beauty and the 
Beast. The Beast solicits the hand of Beauty ; Beauty 
rejects his suit ; and the Beast replies with bitter irony — 

" I know I look a beast my dear, 

But still my hopes are high ; 
There's many a girl has wed, my dear, 

A greater beast than I," 

which is like enough. But to return to our Partridge. 
He was one of those worthy folk who see more than lies 
before them. The Thames presented no such aspect as 
he predicted, but what is very remarkable and well de- 
serves the notice of the philosophic reader, is that this 
frost of 1708-9 though less potent for the congelation of 
water than many other frosts, both before and since, 
was yet more fatal both to animal and vegetable life 
than any that has ever been known in this country. An 
old and anonymous poet who wrote a poem to show that 
" All things some time feel ease," has observed, that be 
the weather inclement as it may, still 

" The owle with feeble sight 

Lyes lurking in the leaves, 
The sparrow in the frosty night 

May shroud her in the eaves." 

But it was not so in the frost of 1708-9. Never was 
there such mortality, especially amongst birds and in- 



1 76 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

sects, as during that winter In many of the southern 
counties of England " it would have given you as much 
as your hands could do to pick up the dead bodies of 
birds ; " while the Essex Marshes were for miles be- 
strewn with swans, brent, geese, seagulls, sandpipers, 
red-shanks and curlews — all dead ! A country gentle- 
man writing from Sevenoaks the year after to the Royal 
Society, observes — " Robin-redbreasts, which before the 
frost were numerous, are since that very scarce about us, 
only here and there one to be seen. Nay, notwithstand- 
ing the recruits in the following summer, yet even still 
in this succeeding winter their scarcity remains. Larks, 
also, both wood and sky larks, which used plentifully to 
entertain us with their melody, became in a manner 
rarities in our country the following spring and summer ; 
only one here and another half a mile or a mile off. I 
have lately inquired of the London poulterers, and they 
tell me they have larks from all parts of England and 
have not this following year received a quarter, nay, 
scarce a tenth part of the larks they used to have by 
' reason the frost killed them,' as the bird-catchers say." 
Nor was the havoc less among the insect tribes. The 
greatest sufferer was the pediculus pulsatorius, or death- 
watch. " Few of them appeared," says the same writer 
(but who ever heard of their appearing), " the following 
summer' ; and in places where they used in July to be 
very sonorous with their ticking noise, only now and 
then one was heard, a manifest sign of their being either 
killed or less fertile." But all this was nothing com- 
pared to what happened on the Continent. In Italy, 
whole shoals of fresh-water fish were found lifeless ; 
birds as they flew along fell down dead in Germany ; 
cows in Portugal were frozen to death in their stalls. 



HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. ijj 

Human life was sacrificed in many countries, and men 
grew stiff and stark and throbless when the spirit of the 
snow-storm breathed in their faces with his icy breath. 
Of 1 20 French soldiers who were marching from Paris 
to Namur, 80 were found dead upon the road. 

It has been stated that the reason of this frost's 
fatality to the animal and vegetable kingdoms was that 
temporary thaws, succeeded by intense cold were of 
continual recurrence ; but the precise amount of credence 
to be attached to this explanation is a question for pro- 
fessional readers to determine. The next frost of any 
importance that happened in England was in 17 15-16, 
when the glories of Frost Fair were renewed upon the 
Thames. The river was frozen over for several miles ; 
booths and stalls were erected on the "yce," and an ox 
was once again eff ulgently roasted " over against White- 
hall." Dr. Derham observes that "the true cause of 
the freezing of the Thames that year was not barely the 
excess of the cold, but the long continuance of it " — an 
opinion not unworthy of the crystal-headed philosopher 
from whom it emanated. But be the cause what it may, 
it is very certain that the effect was delightful to the 
Cockneys. The river was as usual the head-quarters of 
popular diversion ; and fun and festivity were of uni- 
versal prevalence upon its congested waters. Gay has 
celebrated the event in spirited and melodious verse : — 
" O, roving muse ! recall that wondrous year 

When winter reigned in bleak Britannia's air, 

When hoary Thames, with frosted oziers crowned, 

Was three long moons in icy fetters bound : 

The waterman, forlorn, along the shore 

Pensive reclines upon his useless oar ; 

See harnessed steeds desert the stony town 

And wander roads unstable, not their own. 
12 



j 78 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

Wheels o'er the harden'd waters smoothly glide, 
And graze with whitened track the slippery tide. 
Here the fat cook piles high the blazing fire, 
And scarce the spit can turn the steer entire. 
Booths sudden hide the Thames, long streets appear, 
And numerous games proclaim the crowded fair. 
So when a general bids the martial train 
Spread their encampment o'er the spacious plain, 
Thick rising tents, a canvas city build, 
And the loud dice resound through all the field." 

But fairs even on terra firma await the fiat of de- 
struction, and how shall there be permanence for a fair 
that's holden on the " yce ? " Forbid it all the laws 
that govern this changeful and perishable planet ! — 

" See now the western gale the flood unbinds, 
And blackening clouds move on with warmer winds ; 
The wooden town its frail foundation leaves 
And Thames' full urn rolls down his plenteous waves ; 
From every pent-house streams the fleeting snow, 
And with dissolving frost the pavement flow." 

A thaw is a wretched spectacle. It looks as though 
Nature were in process of dissolution, and the whole 
world coming to pieces. From so dismal a scene we 
turn with pleasure to 1739-40, when there was " a re- 
markable long and severe frost," which appears to have 
extended over the Continent. The lowest degree of 
the thermometer observed by Lord Charles Cavendish, 
in Marlborough Street, was thirteen degrees on the 5th 
of January, on which day, says the Gentleman's Magazine, 
it was observed to be ten at Stoke Newington. " Ye 
river of ye Thames " was " at its old lunes " again. The 
frost, which began on the 24th December, lasted nine 
weeks, and " a multitude of people," says Smollett, 
"dwelt on the Thames, and a great number of booths 



HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. z jg 

were erected on it." During that winter there was, 
near Leicester, a column of ice ten feet long and three 
in diameter, " the several natural flutings and cavities 
whereof were very surprising." In the parish of Ipstones, 
near Cheadle, in Staffordshire, there was another pillar 
of ice ten yards and three-quarters high and twelve in 
breadth, occasioned by the dripping of a rivulet down a 
rock. During that merciless season there was publish- 
ed in the magazines a " Petition from the River Thames 
to the Lawyers at Westminster," which is so droll in 
conception, and so cleverly sustained throughout, that 
even at this distance of time it may be read with ad- 
vantage. It runs thus : — 

" To the Venerable Sages of Westminster Hall. 
" The Humble Petition of the River Thames, 
" Sheweth, 

" That your petitioner was last Xmas, to the great 
surprise of all in his neighbourhood, arrested in his bed 
by a couple of boisterous and mischievous bailiffs whose 
names are North and East. Those unmerciful creatures 
seized upon all his goods and movables ; have, in strict 
durance ever since, closely confined him, and at the 
same time kept him exposed all this rigorous season to 
the cold, so that he fears he shall lose the use of his 
limbs. 

" That those unrelenting ministers of punishment 
have also treated him with the utmost contempt and 
violence ; have even made a public show of him ; have 
called in heaps of ragamuffins to trample upon him ; 
and, what is worst of all, have foiced a numerous family 
which he used to provide for to beg in the streets. 

" That the afflictions and distresses of your petitioner 



! 80 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

were by means aforesaid so affecting and moving as in 
one night to have turned him as grey as a cat. 

" That the grief of your petitioner who has ever distin- 
guished himself for being serviceable to his country, is 
greatly increased upon reflecting he is so far from being 
as usual useful to the public, that he is become a burden 
and nuisance to it. 

" That your petitioner intends as soon as he can ob- 
tain his liberty to go to sea along with a squadron of 
observation which is to guard the Channel, where he is 
resolved to signalise himself and show his public spirit 
by serving without pay or recompense. 

" That your petitioner is not conscious of having ever 
been guilty of a crime that deserved so severe a punish- 
ment ; but acknowledges that he did some time ago, 
out of curiosity, in a very rude and abrupt manner, 
whilst the courts were sitting, enter Westminister Hall, 
and by so doing, did, though with no malicious design, 
spread a general panic and threw matters into a great 
confusion. For this misdemeanour your petitioner 
humbly apprehends that, as the cause was not cognisable 
by any of the courts, their application has been made 
to the supreme court of judicature, and this severe pro- 
cess has thereupon issued and been served in manner 
aforesaid. 

" Your petitioner therefore humbly prays rn considera- 
tion of his past services, and of those he may do in 
future, that application may be at once again made for 
a stop to be put to these rigorous proceedings and that 
he may recover his liberty." 

This pretty and fanciful squib will not suffer by con- 
trast with the sallies of modern humorists. 






HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. 



No. III. 

The winter of 1739-40 was one of the keenest 
that history takes note of. " It was full of frost, of 
storm, and cloudiness," as Shakespeare phrases it. 
Cold blew the wind, and ill betided the wretch who 
was in a condition to say with Canning's knife-grinder, 
" My hat has got a hole in it." Those were days when 
the integrity of a man's hat, and of his shoes, and of all 
his other raiment should have been, even as Caesar's 
everlasting wife, "beyond suspicion." Aye, of a verity, 
those were days not for hats only, but for wigs as well, 
and eke for " comforters " as our grandmothers, whom 
we do love though we may not marry, delight to call 
them. But though that winter was very severe in Eng- 
land, as was evidenced by the fact that ye river of ye 
Thames was " arrested in his bed," as he himself most 
piteously complained, the cold was felt much more 
acutely in other countries. In more northerly latitudes 
it was little less than homicidal. Not to multiply in- 
stances of its singular austerity, it will suffice to glance 
at the state of things in Lapland during that unmerciful 
winter. An English gentleman who resided at that 
time in the town of Torneo, and corresponded with the 
Gentleman's Magazine, has left us a graphic picture of 
the sufferings of the Lapps. If they opened the door 
of a warm room, the external air instantly converted 
the vapor of it into snow, whirling it around in white 
vortices ! If they went abroad, they felt " as if the air 
were tearing their breast asunder." The solitude of 
the streets was not less than if the inhabitants had all 



182 ERRATIC ESSAYS. 

been dead ; " and you might often see people who had 
a leg or arm frozen off." Sometimes the cold, which 
was always intense, increased by sudden and violent 
fits, which were often fatal to those who were exposed 
to them. Sometimes there rose sudden tempests of 
snow still more terrible. " The wind seemed to blow 
from all quarters of the compass at once, and drove 
along the snow with such fury that in a moment all the 
roads were lost." The roaring of the night-wind, as it 
swept on invisible wings over the face of the snow- 
prairie, had a tone of unearthly sadness, and sounded 
like voices from the unseen world. It is scarcely con 
ceivable that such scenes must not have appealed pow- 
erfully to the fancy, or that the general dejection of 
nature must not have found a sympathetic response in 
the heart even of the least imaginative spectator. How 
forcibly are we reminded of Ossian's fine description : — 
" Sad Bragela calls in vain. The heathcock's head is 
beneath his wing. The hind sleeps with the hart of the 
desert. They shall rise with the morning's light, and 
wander through the sparkling fields. But my tears re- 
turn with the sun, my sighs come on with the night." 
Yet the gloom of the outer world was not for long ; for 
" as soon as night had fairly set in," observes our author, 
" fires of a thousand colours and figures lit up the sky as 
if designed in a country accustomed to such brief dura- 
tions of day to supply the absence of the sun in this 
manner." And then he goes on to describe the glories 
of the aurora borealis, and the motion of the northern 
meteors which, with the elegant fancy of a poet, he 
compares to the waving of a pair of colors in the air. 
On such nights the mercury had usually fallen in the 
thermometer to forty degrees below freezing-point, so 



HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. ^3 

the reader may imagine at what a cost of physical com- 
fort the admirer of nature must have quitted his fire- 
side to gaze upon the splendors of the be-jewelled 
sky! 

The next year that possesses any meteorological pecu- 
liarity of sufficient interest to invite attention was 1749. 
The winter of that year does not seem to have been 
marked by peculiar rigor, but summer indeed " set in 
with its usual severity." On the 16th of June ice was 
taken up in large pieces ; peas in the gardens were 
blasted, and even ferns on Hampstead Heath were 
shrivelled up. " The like was not remembered by the 
longest-lived man," says a contemporaneous writer, 
who here gives us the first glance we have yet obtained 
of that oblivious veteran " the oldest inhabitant." The 
walnut trees in Hyde Park were almost killed by the 
. frost ; and at Stockport, in Cheshire, there was ice 
upon the river, " so that people skated on the same." 
Moore tells us, in ' Lalla Rookh,' of a young man so 
very valiant that 

" He knew no more of fear than he who dwells 
Beneath the tropics knows of icicles ; " 

a couplet, by the way, for which Luttrell proposed to 
substitute 

" He knew no more of fear than he who dwells 
In Scotland's mountains knows of knee-buo&r/s ; " 

Yet a summer such as that of 1794 might have dis- 
mayed the most dauntless of travellers. Eurus and 
Boreas seemed to have been upon their good behavior 
during the next three years, but the " Transactions of the 
Royal Society " record a remarkable frost in the winter 



jS4. err a tic ess a ys. 

of 1753-4. The thermometer varied forty or fifty de- 
grees in twenty-four hours, u the cold coming, as it 
were, by fits in an unusual manner." On the last night 
of that year the glass fell at Bath to thirty degrees be- 
low freezing-point, a thing unprecedented in England. 
The frost lasted from December 30th to February 6th, 
exactly five weeks, and nowhere was it felt with such 
severity as at Norwich. 

Mr. William Ardeton, an inhabitant of that ancient 
city, has bequeathed to posterity some observations which 
may be read with interest by those who are curious in 
weather-lore. He assures us that the "watery parts of a 
glass of ale " froze in thin flakes, and the spirituous 
part remained unfrozen between them ; upon being- 
drained off this part was to the taste nearly as strong as 
brandy, and had a high flavor of the hop. " The finger 
being spat upon, and pressed upon a flat piece of iron 
in the open air, was immediately frozen to it so firmly 
that if- it had been hastily plucked away the skin would 
have been left behind ; and to fill the cup of our won- 
der, " the ice was sometimes the eighth of an inch 
thick for several days together on the inside of windows 
in rooms where a blazing fire was kept." That was 
what young gentlemen with blue lips and vermilion 
noses, who affect to like cold, would in our day call 
" seasonable weather." The winter of 1760 was mild, 
or comparatively so, in England, but dreadful in many 
parts of the Continent. At Bareith the cold was as 
great as in 1709 ; birds dropped down dead as they 
were flying in the air; sentinels at Leipzic were frozen 
to death on their watch; and trees were hardened to the 
obduracy of rock! In 1762-3 there was a month of 
very hard weather in England, and the Thames was 






HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. 185 

frozen over so as to bear carriages, but there is no 
record of a frost-fair. In 1766 the barometer played all 
manner of unaccountable vagaries, alternately freezing 
and scorching people, and trifling in the most heartless 
manner with the noblest feelings of their nature, as the 
sentimental novelists say. The summer was warm and 
serene, almost beyond precedent, but the winter would 
have done honor to Greenland. We find it narrated in the 
Annual Register, for the bewilderment of all succeeding 
ages, that at eight o'clock in the evening of a Saturday 
in July, " the man who laid a wager to cross the Thames 
in a butcher's tray set out in the same from Somerset 
Stairs, and reached the Surrey side with great ease, 
using nothing but his hands ; he had on a cork jacket 
in case of any accident." Upwards of seventy boat- 
fuls of spectators were present on the occasion, and it 
is said that ,£1,400 was staked in wagers on the success- 
ful achievement of this wonderful feat. Well, to-be 
sure ! in what perilous and ridiculous positions will men 
be content to place themselves rather than undergo the 
drudgery of an honest calling ! One man goes up in a 
balloon, and comes down more rapidly than is consist- 
ent with dignity ; another puts his head into a lion's 
mouth, the law of probability being that he will leave 
it there ; a third walks on the ceiling like a fly, and 
occasionally descends like a man, thereby illustrating 
the truth of the old gentleman's saying in Petronius 
Arbiter — minores quam muscee sumus — we are less than 
flies ; a fourth crosses the river in a butcher's tray ! 
— and all to avoid the monotony which waits upon 
every-day pursuits. Now, in all human probability, the 
man who crossed the river in a tray was a married man 
and the father of a family, and think what a humiliating 



^6 ERR A TIC ESSA VS. 

position was this for one who had given hostages to 
fortune ! But it is greatly to be deplored that contem- 
poraneous writers should not have had a clearer appre- 
hension of their duty than to have left us such imperfect 
particulars respecting this adventurous hero who set his 
life upon a tray. " Who was his father, who was his 
mother, who was his sister, who was his brother ? " — as 
the song asks, but fails to answer — and under what cir- 
cumstances did he perform his singular achievement? 
Was he a long man or a short one ? — and in what man- 
ner did he navigate his craft ? From the fact that the 
tray is distinctly described as a butcher's tray, we infer 
that it cannot have exceeded the ordinary size of such 
articles, else would it have been unfit for a flesher's 
purpose ; but how did our wooden Leander stow himself 
away in it ? Did he stand on it after the manner of a 
tree, or sit in it after the manner of a man, or lie in it 
after the passive fashion of a leg of mutton, or coil him- 
self up in it after the example of a cat ? How strange, 
how sad that historians should have left us without one 
iota of information upon any of these all-important 
points ! But since it is vain to speculate where there 
are no data for conjecture, let us bid farewell to the 
butcher, and say a few words about the winter of the 
same year. Of all the winters ever known it was prob- 
ably the most eccentric. Its strange variety of temper- 
ature and the wild vicissitudes of its weather, seem to 
place it beyond the range of precedent. There seemed 
to be a disposition in the elements to do all manner of 
inconsistent things at one and the same moment. Thus 
it was thundering in one place while it was freezing in 
another. On the 2d of January the tide rose so high 
in the River Thames that the damage done by it was 



HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. 187 

estimated at £50,000. A few days after, the river was 
frozen, and the snow in the valley of the Thames was so 
deep as, of course, to exceed the mnemonics of the 
oldest inhabitant. On the night of that same 2d of 
January, there was a prodigious fall of snow in Edin- 
burgh, and on the night following came thunder, light- 
ning and tempest. On the Cotswold Hills " there was a 
disposition in the air to rain and freeze simultaneously." 
" At Birdlip on Thursday night a peacock, belonging to 
Mr. Biggs, was frozen on the branch when it was at roost ; 
the branch broke, and in the morning the bird was 
found dead with the cold, and the ice congealed to its 
tail weighed 100 lbs." " People on the other side of the 
hills, towards Herefordshire, inform us," wrote a coun- 
try gentleman from Cotswold, " that it was shocking to 
hear the clashing of the trees and to behold the devas- 
tation that it made." Mr. Bainbridge, of Bolton, at- 
tempting to cross the Ulverston Sands on horseback, on 
the 29th of January, was caught in the frost-fog, and 
wandered about till the flood tide came in and sur- 
rounded him. He killed his horse in galloping back- 
wards and forwards in hopes to escape the tide, but he 
still kept his saddle, and after floating for five hours on 
the surface of the water, he was at last descried by two 
youths belonging to the sloop Providence, from Miln- 
thorpe. Motionless and benumbed with cold, he was 
still seated on the dead horse. The sailor boys went 
out to his rescue in a boat, towed him to the side of the 
vessel, hoisted him with a tackle on board, stripped 
him of his wet garments, clad him with their own 
clothes, poured brandy down his throat and, perceiving 
signs of returning animation, put out in their boat 
again, though the sea was running " mountains high," 



188 ERRATIC ESSAYS. 

and rowed him on shore, after which they carried him 
in their arms, for half a mile, to the nearest public- 
house ! Noble, gallant boys ! — would that we knew 
your names. But it is of little consequence. You have 
gone to your eternal rest, and He who " causeth the 
wind to blow and the waters to flow " — He who " giveth 
the snow like wool and the hoar-frost like ashes," bur 
in whose smile there is perennial sunshine, has given 
you a reward compared with which the honors and dig- 
nities of this world are less than worthless. 

It was a woeful winter that of 1766-7, and the suf- 
ferings of the poor are terrible to read of. Postillions 
were frozen in their saddles ; wagons and stage- 
coaches were " snowed in " on all the great roads ; the 
post-boy who carried the mail from Bradford to Roch- 
dale was with his horse frozen to death. At Horsham, 
in Sussex, a great flock of larks settled in the market- 
place so frost-starved that many of them were taken up 
by hand ; inundations in Scotland were so great that 
they are talked of to this day. " In profound darkness 
in the midst of the water, husbands were carrying their 
wives in their arms, others threw children to the first 
house or bed to which they were admitted." " To a 
bystander free from danger, says a writer in the Scofs 
Magazine, " perhaps never was there revealed a more 
awful or more stupendous sight. The waves were pro- 
digious and the noise truly dreadful. The appearance 
of the Old Fort, to the south-east of Gun's Green, 
which forms the entrance to the harbor, seemed only 
one continued cataract of great extent, and in appear- 
ance a hundred fathoms high." A farmer near Suner- 
dale, going after some sheep that were missing during 
the snow, took with him a bottle of rum and a small 



HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. ^g 

glass. When he found them, some seemed just dying 
with the cold, to every one of which he gave a little of 
the rum. To those that seemed least affected he gave 
none. What is most remarkable, and what we would 
especially recommend to the notice of Sir Wilfrid Law- 
son is, that " he got all that had taken the rum safe 
home, but some of the rest died by the way." The 
weather was equally severe on the Continent, but the 
limits of this article will not allow me to mention any 
other event connected with the weather in foreign 
countries, but these very memorable ones — that the 
Danube was frozen over at Coblentz, a thing that had 
not happened since 1670, and that the Sound was so 
completely congealed that the communication was 
open with Sweden on the ice. In 1776, ten years later, 
there was a winter of extraordinary rigor in various 
parts of Europe, but there does not appear to have 
been any cold of exceptional severity in England until 
1789, on the 12th January, in which year, "ye river of 
ye Thames was again frozen over, and a young bear 
was baited on the ice opposite Radcliff, which drew 
multitudes together, and fortunately, no accident hap- 
pened to interrupt the sport." During the same month, 
as I find recorded in Mr. Urban's venerable volumes, 
thirteen men brought a wagon with a ton of coal from 
Loughborough, in Leicestershire, to Carlton House, as 
a present to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. As soon 
as the coal was emptied into the cellar Mr. Waltje, 
clerk of the cellar, gave the men four guineas, but 
when the Prince was informed of it, " His Highness 
sent them twenty guineas more, and ordered them a 
pot of beer each man." " They performed their jour- 



190 



ERRATIC ESSAYS. 



ney, which is 111 miles, in eleven days, and drew the 
wagon all the way without relief." But the poor crea- 
tures did not make much by their movement after all, 
fcr when the cost of the coal and of their shoe-leather, 
and of their keep on the road was deducted from the 
twenty-four guineas, there was not much to divide 
among the thirteen. Another occurrence of that memo- 
rable winter seems sufficiently absurd to deserve a passing 
allusion. One dismal dreary morning of December, 
when the snow was at its snowiest and the ice was at 
its iciest, two footmen, who had a quarrel about a well- 
made, straight-made, plump-made,* stout-made house- 
maid, met in a field near Haverstock Hill, on the Road 
of Hampstead, for purposes of mortal conflict ! They 
were armed with pistols, and changed shots without the 
slightest injury to either party. At length they agreed " to 
make it up," and walked off the field as sound as they 
had entered it. No harm would have been done were it 
not that their respective masters unfortunately got wind 
of the matter, and discharged them, "telling them that 
they had made fools of themselves, and that it was 
only people of quality who were privileged to murder 
one another." There were other severe winters in 
England during the eighteenth century, but none of 
sufficient asperity to require a detailed notice. The 
most remarkable were those of 1796 and 1797, which 
are celebrated, not for their continous rigor, but rather 
for the occasional occurrence of days which it makes 
one shiver to think of. Thus we learn that on Christ- 
mas Day, 1796, the cold in the New Road was twenty- 
one degrees below freezing-point, and the frost remained 
for hours upon the windows of rooms in which fires 



HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. 



191 



were constantly burning. But let us pause. Thi^is 
frigid reading, but let the reader keep up his spirit, re- 
membering the melodious maxim of the poet — 

" What ! though the frost 
Reign everlastingly, and ice and snow 
Thaw not but gather ! — there is that within 
Which, where it comes, makes summer." 



No. IV. 



It is a striking illustration of the progress of edu- 
cation in recent times, and of the more ample dif- 
fusion of useful knowledge by means of the printing 
press, that whereas it was only at the cost of great labor 
and extraordinary research that I could obtain the his- 
torical materials from which to construct a narrative of 
the famous frosts that occurred in England from the 
tenth to the eighteenth centuries, no sooner have I ar- 
rived at those which happened in the nineteenth cen- 
tury than materials accumulate upon my hands with 
such rapidity and copiousness that my embarrassment 
is that of a child at a feast, who can with difficulty 
make up his mind to which of the many dainties that 
surround him he shall first address himself. Mine, in 
fact, is what our Gallic friends call Vembarras des rich- 
esses. So many historians throng around me that it is 
not easy to decide to which of them I should give the 
preference ; but on the whole it is perhaps as well to 
select William Hone as my guide, philosopher and 
friend on the present occasion. The reader will under- 



1 92 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

staild, therefore, that it is on the authority of the state- 
ments made by that laborious and conscientious author 
that the following account of the great frost of 1814 
may be said mainly to depend. 

It would appear then that the celebrated frost of 1814 
was preceded by a fog which fell on London like a huge 
pall, on the 22d of December, 18 13. It is described 
by Mr. Hone as " darkness that might be felt." Cabinet 
business of great importance had been transacted, and 
Lord Castlereagh left " the village," as Cobbett used to 
call this mighty Babylon, two hours before, to embark 
for the Continent. The Prince Regent, proceeding to- 
wards Hatfield on a visit to the Marquis of Salisbury, 
was obliged to return to Carlton House, after being ab- 
sent several hours, during which period the carriages 
had not proceeded beyond Kentish Town, " and one of 
the outriders fell into a ditch." Mr. Wilson Croker, 
Secretary of the Admiralty, on a visit northward, wan- 
dered likewise several hours in making a progress of 
not more than three miles, and was likewise compelled 
to put back. On most of the roads, excepting on the 
high North Road, travelling was attended with the ut- 
most danger, and mail and stage coaches were every- 
where brought to a dead lock. On the 28th, the 
Maidenhead coach, coming to London, missed the road 
near Stratford Bridge, and was overturned. Lord Ha- 
warden was among the passengers, and was severely 
injured. On the 29th similar accidents occurred to 
public vehicles in all parts of England ; and the Bir- 
mingham mail took six horses and twelve hours to get 
as far as Uxbridge, where it had to give up the journey 
as a bad job. The short " stages," — as coaches were 
then called — in the neighborhood of London, had two 



HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. ^3 

men with links, running by the horses' heads. Pedes- 
trians carried lanterns and flambeaux, yet frequently 
lost themselves in the most frequented and best known 
streets. Hackney-coachmen mistook the pathway for 
the road, and often did not discover their mistake until 
the crash of broken glass apprised them that they were 
half-way through the window of a shop. On New Year's 
Eve the fog was worse than ever. " In some districts of 
the town the lamps were utterly invisible ; in others 
they looked like farthing rush-lights." Coachmen led 
their horses by the head, while boys went before with 
blazing torches. There was no such thing as driving 
from the box. " The shouting of male foot-passengers, 
who were afraid of being run over, and the screaming 
of women, who in their bewilderment usually took the 
very course that was most likely to ensure that end, 
were terrible to hear." At last the fog, which had con- 
tinued day and night for a week, cleared off ; then came 
a snow-storm which lasted for forty-eight hours ; and 
then came the famous frost. And now locomotion on 
other legs than your own was brought to a violent ter- 
mination. You might slide, you might skate, you might 
roll about as you pleased, but there was no such thing 
as being conveyed in a carriage, or riding on horseback ! 
Not a vehicle to be seen in the streets of London ! 
From many buildings icicles a yard and a half long 
were seen suspended. The water pipes to the houses 
were all frozen, and it was with difficulty that a supply 
of water could be had even by means of plugs in the 
streets. Skating was pursued with great avidity on the 
canal in St. James' Park, and the Basin, as it was then 
called, in the Green Park. The sweep, the dustman, 
the drummer, the beau, gave evidence of their skill in 
13 



194 



ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 



skimming over the icy lake, and claimed the approving 
smiles of the belles who viewed their movements. 

" Nimbly, swiftly off they go, 
With sport above and death below." 

In Hyde Park a more distinguished order of visit- 
ors crowded the banks of the Serpentine. Ladies, in 
dresses of rich fur, bade defiance to the wintry winds, 
and ventured on a surface frail and brilliant as " the glass 
wherein they viewed themselves." Skaters in great 
numbers executed some of the most difficult movements 
of the art, to universal admiration. "A lady and two 
officers, who, to the music of a fine band, performed a 
reel with a precision scarcely conceivable, received ap 
plause so boisterous as to terrify the fair cause of the 
general expression, and occasion her to forego the pleas- 
ure she received from the amusement." 

" The Hyde Park river — which no river is — 
The Serpentine — which is not serpentine — 
When frozen every skater claims as his 
In right of common, there to entertwine 
With countless crowds, and glide upon the ice. 
Lining the banks, the timid and unwilling 
Stand and look on, while some the fair entice 
By telling ' Yonder skaters are quadrilling, 
And here the skaters hire the best skates for a shilling. " 

On the 20th of January the snow came down — to use 
a sublime and beautiful simile — " like everlasting hokey 
pokey." On Finchley Common, by the fall of one 
night, it lay to a depth of sixteen feet, and the road was 
impassable, even to oxen. At Maidenhead Lane the 
snow was still deeper, and between Twyford and Read- 
ing it was mountainous. Accounts say that on rjarts of 



HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. 



i9S 



Bagshot Heath description would fail to convey an ade- 
quate idea of its situation. The Middle North Road 
was hopelessly impassable at Highgate Hill. The ac- 
counts from the provinces read now like what travellers 
tell us they have seen in Siberia and Lapland. The Cam- 
bridge mail-coach, coming to London, sank into a hollow 
of the road, and remained with the snow drifting over it 
from twelve o'clock at night till nine o'clock in the morn- 
ing, when it was dragged out by fourteen wagon horses. 
The passengers, who were in the coach the whole of the 
time, were nearly frozen to death ; that they were not 
altogether so is little less than a miracle. In Scotland 
the frost was still more severe ; but what is very remark- 
able in the history of this extraordinary event, is, that 
the cold, which at its height was probably as great as had 
ever been experienced in any part of the world, was 
preceded by a period of singular warmth. The mildness 
of the weather during the greater part of December was 
almost unprecedented. Bees were abroad on the 17th 
and 1 8th, flying about the hive " as busily as they com- 
monly are in spring." " The rooks in Dumfriesshire,'' 
says the Scots Magazine, "were fighting about their 
nests in the manner they usually do at the time of pair- 
ing, previous to their beginning to build. On Christ- 
mas Eve great numbers of trout were rising at the fly, 
and some were caught with minnows. The thrush was 
heard singing on the 21st, and the blackbird on the 23d, 
a very uncommon circumstance." Bat all this was only 
"the current's smoothness ere it dash beneath," as the 
poet says ; for the frost set in with ferocity on the 28th, 
and continued for many weeks. At Kelso, the Tweed was 
completely frozen over, and " an excellent and hot din- 
ner was served in a tent on the ice to a numerous and 



1 96 ERR A TIC ESS A KS". 

respectable company." Among the toasts, as we find 
them recorded in the Scottish periodicals of the time, 
were the following : — " General Frost, who so signally 
fought last year for the deliverance of Europe, and who 
now supports the present company." " Both sides of 
the Tweed, and God preserve us in the middle." 
Among the guests was an old man who was present at 
the last entertainment given under similar circumstances 
that took place in the winter of 1740, when an ox was 
roasted on the ice. The honest veteran declared his 
delight in finding that, after a lapse of seventy-three 
years, " the present generation had by no means de- 
generated from their ancestors in the essentials of good 
cheer, good fellowship and hospitality." But if the frost 
was severe in England and in Scotland, it was still more 
so in Ireland. So completely suspended was the inter- 
course between Dublin and different parts of the inte- 
rior that on the 17th of January no fewer than 1500 
country mails were due in the metropolis. " It is like 
a blockaded town," writes a gentleman who resided at 
that time in Dublin, " and begins already to experience 
in the midst of a profound peace the miseries and dis- 
tresses of a besieged city." The number of deaths 
from cold and want was greater than at any other peri- 
od, unless at the time of the plague. But to return to 
London, " the best place in summer, and the only place 
in winter," as Dr. Johnson was accustomed to call it — 
we find that our old friend " ye river of ye Thames " 
was meanwhile hardening his heart, to the infinite de- 
light of the Cockneys, who, as usual, congregated in 
merry groups upon his frozen bosom. On Wednesday, 
2d of February, " the whole world looked as if it were 
petrified," to use the words of a contemporaneous wri- 



HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. I9 y 

ter. The Serpentine and the New River were alike, as 
hard as iron, and icicles hung from every tree. Then 
were the glories of Frost Fair renewed in all their pris- 
tine splendor. The grand " Mall," or walk, extended 
from Blackfriars Bridge to London Bridge ; this was 
named the City Road, and was lined on each side by 
persons of all classes. The Fair continued for a whole 
week, and pleasant is the memory of its revels. Kitchen 
fires were blazing in all directions, and all manner of 
edible animals, from an ox to a rabbit, and a goose to 
a lark, were turning on numberless spits. Sheep were 
also roasted whole, and the meat was sold at a shilling 
a slice, and called " Lapland Mutton." The inscrip- 
tions upon several booths and lighters were humorous 
and whimsical. One of them ran thus : 

" This shop to let. N. B. It is charged with no land tax or even 
ground rent." 

Eight or ten printing-presses were erected, and numer- 
ous pieces commemorative of the frost were printed on 
the ice. Among the effusions issued were the follow- 
ing:— 

Frost Fair, 1814. 

" You that walk here and do design to tell 
Your children's children what this year befel, 
Come, buy this print and it will then be seen 
That such a year as this has seldom been." 

Liberty of the Press. 

" Friends, now is your time to support the freedom of the press. 
Can the press have greater liberty ? Here you find it working in 
the middle of the Thames, and if you encourage us by buying our 
impressions we will keep it going in the true spirit of liberty during 
the frost." 



198 ERRATIC ESSAYS. 

Upon another booth built upon the ice was written 
this droll advertisement : — 



" Notice. — The proprietor of these premises would be happy to 
let them on a building lease. Apply to Mr. Frost." 

On Thursday, February 3, the number of adventurers 
had enormously increased. Swings, Merry-go-rounds, 
booths, tents, dancing-rooms, skittles, ninepins, and even 
donkey races were among the scenes and appliances of 
diversion which everywhere met the eye. Thousands 
flocked to this singular spectacle of sports and pastimes. 
The ice was " like a plane of solid rock," and presented 
a most picturesque appearance ; the view of St. Paul's 
and of the City, with a white foreground and misty per- 
spective, had a very singular effect, and " in many direc- 
' tions mountains of ice upheaved presented the rude in- 
terior of a stone quarry." The watermen profited ex- 
ceedingly, for they demanded of each person a toll of • 
twopence before admitting him to feast his eyes upon 
the radiant attractions of Frost Fair. Ah ! it was fine 
fun while it lasted, but it was too good to last long, and, 
like everything else that is pleasant in this fleeting world, 
it was over too soon. In the matter of freezing and 
thawing the ancient and ever-to-be-venerated river of ye 
Thames has physiological peculiarities precisely similar 
to those which distinguished the respectable old tailor of 
whom we were wont to sing in our nursery days : — 

" Take an old tailor and squeeze him, 

And rub him over with cheese, 
And put him out on a frosty night, 

And 'tis ten to one that he'll freeze." 



HARD WEATHER LONG AGO. 



199 



So far so good ; nothing can be pleasanter ; but alas ! 
and a-well-a-day ! look at the sad reverse of the pic- 
ture— 

" Bring him in in the morning, 

And rub him over with straw, 
And set him before a blazing fire, 

And 'tis ten to one that he'll thaw." 

Like enough, and so it happened to ye river of ye 
Thames on Monday, 7th February, 18 14. The wind, 
which had been veering towards the south for some hours 
past, at last set fairly in for that point, and the sun shin- 
ing forth at mid-day in unclouded splendor made it soon 
painfully evident that it was all over with the frost. 
Thousands of disappointed spectators thronged the 
banks ; the watermen looked forlorn and dejected ; and 
many a 'prentice on fun intent went home with a heavy 
heart as he observed that nothing now remained of the 
famous Frost Fair but its memory — its blessed memory 
which to the end of time will smell sweet and blossom 
in the dust. 

" Diffugere nives, redeunt jam gramina campis, 
Arboribusque comae ; 
Mutat terra vices ; et decrescentia ripas 
Flumina prsetereunt" 

It was probably on the night of the thaw that the fol- 
lowing woeful apparition, the like of which had not been 
known since the days of Captain Smith and the unfor- 
tunate Miss Bailey, revealed itself to the tortured imag- 
ination of a sleepless poet : — 

" Twas silence all ! The rising moon 
With clouds had veiled her light ; 
The clock struck twelve, when lo ! I saw 
A very chilling sight. 



ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

Pale as a snow-ball was its face, 
Like icicles its hair, 

For mantle it appeared to me , , 

A sheet of ice to wear. 

Though seldom given to alarm, 
I' faith I'll not dissemble, 
My teeth all chattered in my head, 
And every joint did tremble. 

At last I cried, ' Pray, who are you ? 
And whither do you go ? ' — 
Methought the phantom thus replied, 
1 My name is Sally Snow; 

My father is the Northern Wind, 
My Mother's name was Water, 
Old Parson Winter married them, 
And I'm their hopeful daughter. 

I have a lover, Jacky Frost, 
My dad the match condemns ; 
I've run from home to-night, to meet 
My love upon the Thames.' 

I stopped Miss Snow in her discourse, 
This answer just to cast in ; 
' I hope if John and you unite 
Your union won't be lasting. 

Besides, if you should marry him 
You cannot prosper well O, 
For surely Jacky Frost must be 
A very slipp'ry fellow.' 

She sat her down before the fire, 
My wonder now increases, 
For she I took to be a maid 
Then tumbled into pieces 



DELIGHT OF GETTING INTO THE COUNTRY. 2 0I 

For air, thin air, did Hamlet's ghost 
His foremost cock-crow barter ; 
But what I saw, and now describe, 
Resolved itself to water." 

So ended the great frost of 1814, with which concludes 
this record of " Hard Weather Long Ago." 



THE DELIGHT OF GETTING INTO THE 
COUNTRY. 

T^HERE is one thing, and one only, that can recon- 
A cile a sensible man to a residence in London, the 
same thing that reconciles a prisoner to his dungeon, the 
blessed hope of getting out of it. In these days of rapid 
locomotion, when change of scene is a blessing within the 
reach of almost everybody, and places once deemed to 
be at an impracticable distance are made easy of access, 
even to people in humble circumstances, it is painful as 
difficult to realize to the imagination the sufferings of 
our forefathers, who, with very rare exception, were 
doomed to dwell all the year round in this immense 
city. The proportion of citizens who could spare either 
the time or the money to travel into the country by mail 
or stage coach was numerically insignificant. Pleasure 
trips were out of the question, or nearly so. Few dreamt 
of going out of town on other occasions than those of in- 
exorable business ; and then, if the journey were of any 
great extent, it was no unusual practice for the traveller 
to make his will before he set out. The vast majority 
of Londoners were immured within brick and mortar 



202 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

from January to December. They were in the same 
sad predicament as Tom Hood, who complained that 
his black-bird was a sweep, and that day after day he 
saw the sun sink behind a chimney-pot instead of a pur- 
ple hill. Our ancestors whose cruel destiny it was to 
dwell in the metropolis were outcasts from Nature. In 
vain, all in vain, for them did the rivers glide, the seas 
flash and foam, the trees wave in the breeze, and the 
flowers bloom in the sunshine. They were forbidden 

" To see the country, far diffused around, 
One boundless blush, one white impurpled shower 
Of mingled blossoms ; where the raptured eye 
Hurries from joy to joy." 

That was a spectacle for rustics alone. Your trueborn 
Cockney knew nothing about it. We live in happier 
times, and have abundant reason to be grateful that the 
modern appliances of science have brought within our 
reach opportunities of pleasure and sources of enjoy 
ment denied to all preceding generations. 

But man is a graceless, thankless, inconsistent crea 
ture, that is the fact of it. The discontent prevalent on 
all hands proves him to be such. Towns-people affect a 
noble scorn of the country, and country-folk pretend to 
hold green fields in supreme contempt. We are fre- 
quently reminded of the man whom Smollett met at the 
dinner of authors, and who had contracted such an an- 
tipathy to the country, that he insisted upon sitting with 
his back towards the window that looked into the gar- 
den, and when a dish of cauliflowers was set upon the 
table, he sniffed up volatile salts to keep him from 
fainting. " Yet this delicate person was the son of a 
cottager, born under a hedge, and -had many years 
run wild among asses on a common." How vast the 



DELIGHT OF GE TTING INTO THE CO UNTR Y. 2 03 

difference between an " exquisite " of that fantastic type 
and honest Squire Bramble in Humphrey Clinker^ who, 
after spending a day or two in London, exclaimed, with 
virtuous indignation, " Everything I see and hear and 
feel in this great reservoir of folly, knavery, and sophis- 
tication contributes to enhance the value of a country 
life in my estimation." Miss Winny Jenkins, in the 
same incomparable story, expressed with equal heart- 
iness her distaste for the dissipations of the great 
metropolis, declaring that " for her part, she regarded 
the pleasures of London as no better than sour whey 
and stale cider, when compared to the joys of the New 
Jerusalem." It may be that both the squire and the 
spinster regarded the question in a somewhat fanatical 
spirit, and that their opinions are therefore to be re- 
ceived with a caution essential for the qualification of 
excessive zeal. There is no denying that great towns 
have done good service before now to the causes of 
liberty, learning, and civilization. " Yes, I bless God for 
cities," writes Dr. Guthrie ; " I recognize a wise and 
gracious Providence in their existence. The world had 
not been what it is without them. The disciples were 
commanded to ' begin at Jerusalem,' and Paul threw 
himself into the cities of the ancient world, as offering 
the most commanding positions of influence. Cities 
have been as lamps of light along the pathway of pro- 
gress and religion ; within them science has given birth 
to her noblest discoveries ; behind their walls freedom 
has fought her noblest battles ; they have stood on the 
surface of the earth like great breakwaters, rolling back 
or turning aside the swelling tide of oppression ; cities, 
indeed, have been the cradles of human liberty ; they 
have been the radiating active centres of almost all 



2 04 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

Church and State reformation. Having, therefore, no 
sympathy with those who, regarding them as the excres- 
cences of a tree or the tumors of disease, would raze 
them to the ground, I bless heaven for cities." This is 
very eloquent, and, in a certain sense, very true ; but 
the fact remains that " God made the country, and man 
made the town," and admitting to the fullest the great 
services rendered to the human race in the aggregate by 
the assembling together of vast masses in common 
centres of population, it still stands to reason that the 
country must be more salubrious and more delightful 
than the town, and that if you would strengthen your 
health, exhilarate your spirits, refine your fancy, and 
exalt your imagination, you must repair not to streets 
lanes, and alleys, but, to verdant valleys, majestic moun- 
tains, and luxuriant woodlands. " Cela va sans dire" 
"That goes without to say," as our lively friends on the 
other side of the Channel are wont to phrase it : — 

" Blest silent groves ! O may ye be 
For ever mirth's best nursery ! 
May pure contents 
For ever pitch their tents 

Upon the downs, the meads, the rocks, the mountains, 
And peace still slumber by the purling fountains." 

Such was the gentle aspiration of Sir Walter Raleigh, 
and what man of sense is there who will not say " Amen " 
to that sweet prayer ? 

What exasperates one beyond all patience in this age, 
when there are so many facilities for men and women 
becoming familiar with the delights of the country, is to 
observe how prone people are to run down those de- 
lights, and to express their preference for the artificial 
joys of the town. It is the commonest thing in the 



DELIGHT OF GETTING INTO THE COUNTRY. 



205 



world to hear it said how dull and monotonous the pur- 
suits and pastimes of the country must be in comparison 
with the gay careers and brilliant excitement of London. 
What nonsense ! In Nature, and in her alone, is there 
infinite variety. The aspects of seas, rivers, and land- 
scapes, of groves and glades, of hills and dales, is ever- 
lastingly changing. The scenery of the sky, which is 
even more picturesque than that of the earth, and which 
can be effectively contemplated only in the country, 
is subject to ceaseless and instantaneous mutations. 
Cloudland is a series of veritable dissolving views, 
revealed under such marvellous conditions of lights and 
shadows as the pen of no poet, the pencil of no painter, 
however inspired, have ever adequately depicted. No 
two flowers in a garden, nay, more, no two leaves upon 
a tree, no two blades of grass in a field, are precisely 
alike. Then consider the number and diversity of rural 
sports, — hunting, shooting, fishing, deer-stalking, cours- 
ing, racing, rowing, cricketing, skating, and a hundred 
manly diversions besides. Yet they talk about the 
sameness of the country ! What can be more irksome, 
what more monotonous than a great city? From rosy 
morn till dewy eve, — but no, it will not do to paint the 
London day in such colors, for in London the morn is 
not rosy, nor is there the faintest semblance of dew in 
the eve. Say, rather, from clammy dawn till foggy 
night, what do we hear and see ? The same never- 
ending, still-beginning uproar of traffic. Interminable 
lines of houses, every brick alike ; myriads of chimney- 
pots, all of the same hideous shape ; lamp-posts by the 
thousand, all of one identical form ; policemen clad in 
coats so absolutely similar that every man-jack in the 
force looks like the twin-brother of his comrade, — long, 



206 ERRATIC ESSAYS. 

lanky Guardsmen hardly distinguishable the one from 
the other; omnibuses, "hansoms," and "growlers," 
each of a rigidly-uniform type \ barrel-organs, and bra- 
zen bands, half-a-dozen of them together, playing the 
same confounded tunes in half-a-dozen adjoining streets, 
these are the objects that horrify the senses of vision 
and hearing in the modern Babylon. All this is bad 
enough in the winter, but in summer it is intolerable. 
The summer sunshine which glorifies and beautifies the 
country, giving splendor to the flowers, scattering mol- 
ten gold over the cornfields, and painting the meadows 
with delight, only serves to intensify the ugliness of the 
streets of London, and to make them more uncomely 
and more uncomfortable than ever. Everything around 
you looks hot and arid. The various statues with which 
the mighty city is disfigured, but notably George III., 
with his pig-tail ; George IV., in his blanket ; the Duke 
of Wellington, in his drawers \ Mr. Peabody sitting 
cross-legged in his arm-chair, and all the busts at which 
the world grows pale, assume an air of positive repul- 
siveness when the sunbeams play upon them, lighting 
up their hideous features, and ungainly forms with a 
distinctness which makes one envy the blind. You 
take a ticket to ride from the City to any West-End 
station, — say, to that most unsightly and inelegant of 
places, Westbourne Park, — by the Underground Rail- 
way, on a lovely summer day. Suppose, just for argu- 
ment's sake, that you arrive safely at your destination, 
and have escaped the dreadful fate of being wedged 
between the footboard and the platform in the wild 
hurry of the porters, what are your sensations when you 
get out of the train ? Why, you feel as though you had 
been breathing all the most pestiferous odors in the 



DELIGHT OF GETTING INTO THE COUNTRY. 



207 



world, and chewing lucifer-matches ever since you left 
Bishopsgate. You walk from the Bank to Charing 
Cross, and what are your experiences ? The pitchy 
stuff they put upon the wooden pavement sticks to the 
soles of your boots like glue ; the hell broth from the 
asphalt-pots well-nigh suffocate you ; Temple Bar looks 
as if it would come toppling about your ears before you 
can get through it ; and you reach Trafalgar Square, 
only to be poisoned by the fumes from the rotten water 
in the fountains, or to fall headlong into the pits which 
the gas-men are digging for their own destruction and 
that of all the world besides. Such is the condition of 
London in the golden month of September. Yet there 
are creatures who, claiming to be human, prefer London 
to all other places. Oh ! for the country, the fresh, 
pure, fragrant country, rich in delicious perfumes, and 
resonant with delightful melodies. 

" How bright and beautiful the sun goes down 
O'er the autumnal forests ! The wide sky, 
Cloudless, is flush'd with that purpureal dye 
Which gave the Tyrian loom such old renown. 
The radiance, falling on the distant town, 
Bathes all in mellowing light ; and softened, come 
Through the lull'd air, the song of birds, the hum 
Of bees, and twitter of the martins brown ; 
All things call back the bosom to the beat 
Of childhood, and to youth's enchanted maze ; 
And hark, the rail, amid the golden wheat, 
With its craik — craik ! Oh ! sad it is, yet sweet, 
To look through Memory's mirror on the days 
Which shone like gold, yet melted down like haze ! " 

These are my sentiments — would they were my words ; 
and being, as I am, of like opinion with the poet, I 
have no feeling but pity for the man who, having 



2 08 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

it in his power to go into the country, would prefer to 
remain in town. He who lives all the year round in 
London has good reason to regret that he is a man, and 
to wish that he could be any more reasonable animal. 
Such an unlucky wight is in a condition to sympathize 
with the aspirations of Robert Burns, " There are just 
two creatures that I would envy — a horse in his wild 
state traversing the forests of Asia, or an oyster on 
some of the desert shores of Europe. The one has not 
a wish without enjoyment ; the other has neither wish 
nor fear." Contrast the fate of either being with that 
of a man who would live in London in preference to 
the country, and blush for your species. 



CASTLES IN THE AIR. 

CTARTING suddenly the other day from a deep 
reverie, into which he had fallen after dinner at a 
roadside inn far away from town, the O'Finnigan O 
sprang to his feet and exclaimed in tones of thunder, 
" Ireland her own, or the world in a blaze ! ! " So say- 
ing, he dealt the unoffending table a terrific thwack 
with his clenched fist. I bethought me of the disputa- 
tious churchman who shouted out in his dreams, " Con- 
clusion est contra Manichczos ! " — " It is decided against 
the Manichaeans ; " I also recalled to mind the anec- 
dote about the brilliant historian who smashed a de- 
canter into sparkling fragments while he was in a brown 
study at the Star and Garter in Richmond. I was 
dreadfully alarmed. That Ireland should have "her 



CASTLES IN THE AIR. 



209 



own," whatever that may be, I have not the slightest 
objection ; but the appalling alternative of the universe 
in flames filled me with dismay. " What can be the 
matter now, my O'Finnigan, with you and your coun- 
try ? " I ventured to inquire, in accents as soothing as I 
could command. "You have got a Duke of Con- 
naught ; cannot you be quiet ? " My gentle joke only 
served to deepen his despondency. " Ah ! " he replied, 
" you may laugh. They laugh who win ; but neither I 
nor my native land ever wins. I was at my old game 
again — building a castle in the air. That castle was 
the freedom and independence of old Ireland. It was 
a goodly structure and fair to behold, but, as usual, it 
has come toppling about my ears. My bleeding coun- 
try is doomed to Saxon bondage ; she is a lovely white- 
robed angel, quivering upon the spear of despotism." 
In vain did I remind him of the praise and pudding 
bestowed with equal liberality upon a countryman of 
his, Sir Garnet Wolseley ; in vain did I call attention 
to the large space taken up by the harp in the national 
ensign,, and to the enormous size of the shamrock in 
the recent illuminations. He was not to be comforted. 
So, finding him inconsolable, I retreated, as is my 
wont, in perfect order upon myself, and lighting my 
pipe, set about building aerial castles of my own, for 
which I fondly expected a better fate than had attend- 
ed those of my sorrow-stricken Hibernian. And a 
very pleasant time I had of it ; for, more fortunate than 
my friend, I am bound in candor to confess that some 
of the most blissful hours of my life have been spent 
in operations of atmospheric architecture. The experi- 
ence of most men would, I imagine, lead to a similar, 
result. The realities of life are too often cold, hard 
14 



2 j ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

and stern ; but there is no limit to the joys of a sump- 
tuous imagination. Fancy has a realm of her own, to 
which the weary and disappointed may at all times re- 
sort in happy assurance of finding their pleasures be- 
yond the reach of cruel fortune. How delightful to 
escape from the toil and turmoil of every-day existence, 
from its ignoble cares and sickening solicitudes, its 
odious fogs and filthy fray, into that Canaan overflow- 
ing with milk and honey, the fairy-land of poetic 
thought ! — 

" A pleasing land of drowsyshed it is, 
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye, 
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, 
For ever flushing round a summer sky." 

Sir Walter Raleigh, indeed, affects to pooh-pooh 
such unsubstantial structures. " These be but castles 
in the air," he says, " and in men's fancies vainly imag- 
ined ; " yet I cannot help thinking that he would have 
found more comfortable accommodation even in edi- 
fices of that visionary description than in the more 
massive masonry of London's Tower. But all men 
should speak of the world, whether in its actual or in 
its ideal phases, as they have found it. " Every one* is 
as God made him, and oftentimes a great deal worse," 
is the philosophic remark of Sancho Panza; and in 
whichsoever of these two conditions he may be, let him, 
at all events, report honestly of that which he may have 
seen, heard or felt. So reporting, I should say that the 
building of castles in the air is of all occupations 
at once the most innocent and the most delightful. 
" Crede experto." I speak from experience ; for, though 
I have never meddled with material brick and mortar, I 



CASTLES IN THE AIR. 2 1 1 

doubt whether there be in all England another man 
who has been so largely engaged in the erecting of 
aerial mansions. Such edifices are inexpensive ; and 
they have this additional advantage that you may build 
them after what plans and designs you please, and fur- 
nish them in the most superb or voluptuous fashion ac- 
cording to your taste. You need have no apprehension 
that your architect will send in a drawing too costly 
and elaborate for your means, that your builder will 
exceed his estimate, or your upholsterer ruin you with 
an exorbitant bill. Independent of them all you are 
free to construct your castle where and how you please, 
and to deck it out with such appointments of drapery 
and decoration as may be most suitable to your con- 
venience or enjoyment. 

Who shall presume to set bounds to your luxurious 
imagination? It is nothing to the purpose to say that 
your castles in the air " come toppling about your ears," 
as the OTinnigan O would phrase it. Of course they 
do. Such is the fate of every castle, whether material 
or immaterial. Everything comes toppling about our 
ears sooner or later, till at last we topple ourselves. It 
is but a question of time ; but it is not in Fate, malig- 
nant though she be — to rob us of the dear delight we 
enjoy while employed in the construction of our Chat- 
eaux en Espagne. What though they go down with a 
rush at the slightest whiff of adverse wind, the sweet 
memory of the pleasure we tasted while building them 
survives their fall, and is a joy for ever. Whether 
life would be worth having if we were deprived of 
the privilege of castle building, is a question on which 
I have not as yet finally made up my mind ; but, as at 
present advised, I am inclined to decide the proposition 



212 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

in the negative. Everything palls in fruition ; nothing 
comes up to one's conception of its charms ; felicity 
dwells in anticipation, and in that alone. Oh ! the 
bliss ineffable of casting aside the bonds of illness and 
the trammels of a mean estate, and soaring at a bound 
into the blue empyrean of poetic fancy, there to revel 
in such affluent delights as the combination of health 
and wealth can bestow. At my little rural lodgings I 
had a fine spell of such rapture. Methought that I had 
succeeded to a noble fortune and was strong as Her- 
cules and as healthy as a German Spa. I was lord of 
myself — that heritage of fun. I had nothing to do, 
and was well paid for doing it ; I was free to roam 
whithersoever I might please ; to go a fly-fishing to 
Norway, or a pig-sticking to India, or a fox-hunting to 
Hampshire. There was no mountain from Primrose 
Hill to the Himalayas that I was not at liberty to as- 
cend. I had books and pictures beyond all counting, 
and my fellow-creatures, so far from snubbing me, or 
turning up their saucy noses at me, as is their custom- 
ary practice, treated me with the utmost distinction, and 
seemed only to live to administer to my pleasure. I called 
the Heir Apparent " Wales," I chucked the royal chil- 
dren under their royal chins, and they seemed to like 
it; nay, more, my Sovereign Lady the Queen regarded 
me with peculiar favor, and styled me the most illustri- 
ous of her subjects. Brown was nowhere. Mine was 
the most brilliant equipage in the Row, mine the most 
spacious box at the opera, mine the brightest and best 
of everything. I had two shirts and as many pairs of 
stockings. Beautiful damsels waited upon me ; they 
sang to me and danced to me, and read my poems 
aloud, and assured me that they perfectly understood 



CASTLES IN THE AIR. 



213 



them, which is more than I would dare to affirm my- 
self. To quote the magnificent language of an Ameri- 
can journalist, in describing the wedding of Miss Grant 
and Mr. Sartoris : " A delightful murmur of conver- 
sation was maintained by the ladies, occasionally 
broken by a zephyr of laughter that only served to rip- 
ple the murmuring waves and melt out with a musical 
echo." And talking of weddings, I had my pick and 
choice of the most magnificent girls in England, which 
means the most magnificent in the world ; and I was 
at liberty to wed any one I pleased of them — or any 
number of them I might fancy, for the matter of that. 
I got peerages for my friends. I ran over my enemies 
as though they were mice ; and, in a word, I did just 
as I chose, which is freedom worthy of the name. I 
bullied all my editors, and behaved with supreme 
insolence to everyone who is now in authority over 
me, for I had reached the high top-gallant of my joy, 
and I belonged to that lucky fraternity of whom 
old Owen Feltham has written that " their paths are 
washt with butter and the rosebud crowns them." Such 
and so prosperous was the condition of my fortunes be- 
tween the hours of six and eight on Thursday last, while 
I was employed in the noble occupation of building 
castles in the air — I built a whole town of them. True, 
the inevitable hour of disenchantment chimed with an 
ominous dirge, and when my landlady informed me 
that Mr. Chalk, my milkman (to whom I owe eighteen- 
pence — and am well able to owe it), was waiting down 
stairs and had become importunate, I sighed to think 
that I resembled Caligula, who raised a mighty army, 
and then led it to gather cockle-shells — but what of 
that ? I had had two hours of intense enjoyment, and 



214 



ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 



that is more than can be said by every muddy-mettled 
rascal who lords it in the Park or swaggers through 
Lombard Street, but who, for all his wealth, knows no 
more about the art and mystery of building castles in 
the air than a cow knows of playing the flute. Youth, 
the season made for joy, is not less certainly the age 
most favorable for castle-building. Who that ever was 
a boy or girl does not hark back with fond delight, not 
unmixed with a tender touch of melancholy, to the days 
when he or she mapped out a future of unclouded joy, 
and filled it with palaces of pleasure. To hear chil- 
dren talk of what they will do " when they are big " — 
that golden goal never to be reached soon enough, and 
then to think of what it will all end in, vanity and vexa- 
tion of spirit, are matters that may well awaken in the 
mature observer a mournful reflection ; for 

" O, ye tiny elves who sport 

Like linnets in a bush, 
You little know what grief you court 

When manhood is your wish." 

All too true ; and yet the very longing for that time, 
the very effort of the youthful imagination to invest 
it with ideal charms, the very attempt to paint it in 
the prismatic hues of fancy, are in themselves joys as 
genuine as any that the world can supply. Last Sun- 
day morning a friend of mine, an artist of eminence, 
gave his eldest daughter a gold watch — a birthday gift 
on the completion of her fourteenth year. " How I 
wish that I was fourteen instead of six and a half, and 
then I should have a present ! " exclamed her little 
sister. " Ah ! my child," rejoined the father, " how I 
wish that I was fourteen and then I should have a 



CASTLES IN THE AIR. 215 

future" " Tout le monde a son CarcasonneP Every 
one pictures to himself some condition of being more 
blissful and congenial than that which fortune has 
assigned to him. Handel fancied himself born to com- 
mand a troop of horse, and Liston, whom nobody 
could look at without laughing in his face, lived and 
died in the belief that tragedy was his fort. Even M. 
Gambetta, who carries his affection for Republican 
institutions to such a pitch that he will go up in a bal- 
loon to serve their interests, sighs for the appearance of 
" that flower of elegance and good-breeding " which is 
to make the French Republic what the Athenian once 
was. May his head never ache till he gets it. Speaking 
of the romantic exaggerations of poesy, Sir Philip Sid- 
ney says that " Nature never set forth the earth in so 
rich tapestry as diverse poets have done : neither 
with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling 
flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too-much- 
loved earth more lovely. Her world is brazen ; the 
poets deliver a golden." This holds good not alone of 
poets but also of lovers. For painting the meadows with 
delight, and filling the firmament with picturesque cas- 
tles, I will back you hair-brained sweethearts against 
all creation. 



THE MISERIES OF MUSIC. 

" T AM never merry when I hear sweet music," says 

A Shakespeare. No more am I, my divine William. 

I am downright miserable. Indeed, the more I think of 

it, the more firmly am I convinced that music is at the 



2 1 6 . ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

bottom of fully one-half the miseries of human life. 
Who can be comfortable, who can hope to enjoy one 
hour of mental serenity, whose peace is everlastingly 
being invaded by the blowing of horns, the beating of 
drums, the droning of bag-pipes, the scraping of fiddles, 
the grinding of organs, and the various vocal noises 
that pass under the name of " singing ? " Who, indeed ? 
The row that goes on in the streets of London from 
foggy morn to " gassy " eve, owing to the uproar created 
on all hands by the blatant blackguards who are per- 
petually performing upon one instrument of torture or 
another, is enough to drive a man out of his senses. It 
shatters his nerves, disquiets his brain, spoils his temper, 
ruins his digestion, and plays the mischief with his 
liver. And the agony of it is that you never know what 
you have done with it. The evil is Hydra-headed, and 
is perpetually assuming new forms of horror and dismay. 
Barrel organs and brass bands were bad enough, in all 
conscience, but superadded to these we have now many 
contrivances still more exasperating. The most recent 
invention is an infernal machine upon wheels — a sort of 
mitrailleuse pianoforte, which being set in motion by 
the felonious arm of some unwashed scoundrel from be- 
yond the Alps — would they were on the top of him ! — 
discharges volley upon volley of the most maddening 
sounds into your ears, destroying all conversation, dis- 
tracting all thought, forbidding all study, turning the 
blessed sense of hearing into a curse, and making you 
envy the deaf. There is no nation on earth besides 
ourselves who would endure such a persecution for four- 
and-twenty hours. They would turn as one man upon 
their torturers, and fling them and their hideous instru- 
ments into the sea. A half-naked Highlander prowling 



THE MISERIES OF MUSIC. 2 1 7 

under your windows, and playing upon that detestable 
thing called the bag-pipe, is a spectacle sufficiently 
humiliating to our civilization ; but the stalwart savage 
is tall, massive, and sinewy, a good-looking, well-propor- 
tioned fellow, lazy vagabond though he be, and after all 
he is our countryman. But what is to be said for those 
ugly, undersized Italian or Swiss miscreants in steeple 
hats, ragged cloaks, and filthy buskins, who under the 
pretence of dancing, caper about like galvanized jack- 
asses, braying the while at the top of their villainous 
voices, and squeezing out of huge bags of air, which they 
carry beneath their right arms, noises compared to which 
the filing of saws is heavenly melody. Talk of the 
drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe forsooth ! Why it is 
the song of St. Cecilia in comparison. I declare that I 
would rather listen to the famous porcine piano in- 
vented by Louis XIII., and composed of living pigs of 
all ages and sizes, into whose bodies needles were 
driven successively so that the gruntings of the victims 
were modulated to a perfect gamut. Yes, I would rather 
— a thousand times rather — listen to such music as that, 
than to the howlings and dronings of these make-believe 
shepherds and cow-herds. Avaunt, you discordant 
scoundrels ! Out of sight, you soapless, hirsute vagrants ! 
Away with you ! 

Cedite Tibicines Itali vos cedite Galli ! 
Dico iterum vobis cedite Tibicines ! 
Cedite Tibicines, vobis ter dico quaterque 
Iterum vobis dico Cedite Tibicines ! " 

But no. They won't stir. Not an inch will they 
budge ; they know better, the scamps. You flee from 
London to the sea-side in the hope of avoiding their 



2 1 8 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

persecution. Vain hope ! Out of the frying-pan into 
the fire ! Go where you may, they pursue you remorse- 
lessly. You take a quiet lodging, far from the terraces 
and squares, only to find that the "musicians " — bless the 
mark — come in front of your house in successive batches, 
relieving one another with the regularity of sentries. 
You venture upon the pier, but there they are before you. 
The town is swarming with hordes of inharmonious min- 
strels vying to make. day and night alike — hideous. Turn 
where you may they shock your gaze and horrify your 
ears. There are three or four distinct troupes of sham 
niggers with their bones, fiddles, and tambourines, their 
slang songs and idiotic jokes. The atmosphere resounds 
with their ribald jests and gimcrack ballads, and their 
outlandish dress is in perfect keeping with their barbar- 
ous clangor. Perhaps you are discoursing with your 
sweetheart on the blessed tranquillity of a country life, 
when " Fireworks on the brain ! " bursts upon you with 
a mocking, agonizing distinctness ; or it may be that you 
are in a tender, sentimental vein, and on the very verge 
of a proposal, when " First she would and then she 
wouldn't " comes ringing through the air with a derisive 
cadence that makes you regard your Beloved as a heart- 
less little flirt, unworthy of your choice. Presently the 
squeak of " Mr. Punch " turns your teeth on edge ; and 
hardly have you recovered from the unpleasant sensa- 
tion when you find yourself confronted by a piper, a 
fiddler, an organ-grinder, or, worse still, an artist who 
performs upon the spout of a coffee-pot. Every man 
Jack of them is playing the same air — the tune the old 
cow died of ; and many besides that aged animal have 
perished of that tune. By-and-bye you are doomed to 
hearken to the squalling of a ballad-singer far dearer to 



THE MISERIES OF MUSIC. 



219 



Bacchus than to Apollo. Oh ! my good woman, do, for 
pity's sake, hold your tongue. 

" Swans sing before they die ; 'twere no bad thing 
Did certain persons die before they sing." 

So said Samuel Taylor Coleridge ; but what care you 
for Samuel Taylor Coleridge ? Not a potato. As well 
might one whistle jigs to a mile-stone in the hope of 
setting it a-dancing, as quote poetry to you in the hope 
of moving you to mercy. Your calling is to make 
people miserable, and all too well do you fulfil your 
mission. Then, again, there are oratorios, than which 
nothing under the sun can be much more absurd. 
"What," asks Sydney Smith, "can be more ridiculous 
than to see four or five hundred fiddlers scraping away 
for their dear lives all about Moses and the children of 
Israel in the Red Sea ? " The most enthusiastic vota- 
ries of Paganini's art have never yet been able to give a 
satisfactory answer to that question. So much for the 
miseries of music in public. In private they are neither 
less numerous nor less poignant. When Music, heaven- 
ly maid, was young, who could have supposed that she 
would turn out to be such a nuisance in her old age ? 
You go to a friend's house hoping to spend a pleasant 
evening ; but it is out of the question. No sooner have 
you warmed to your cosy little chat than up stands 
some unfortunate man or still more unfortunate woman, 
who fancies that he or she can sing, and who, under 
that hallucination, makes for the piano and proceeds to 
utter a horrid clamor fatal alike to sensible discourse 
and social enjoyment. Farewell now to friendly con- 
verse, a long farewell to all the joys of convivial inter- 
course. " If music be the food of love, play on ! " 



2 2 o ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

Just so ; but it isn't. The food of love, indeed ! It is 
the food of hatred. Consider what happens upon the 
field of battle. Do you really suppose that thousands 
upon thousands of men who owe one another no grudge, 
who, so far from having any personal quarrel, have 
never before been face to face, and do not so much as 
know one another's names, would fly at one another's 
throats and shed one another's blood like water if they 
were not driven to distraction, brutalized, infuriated, 
and bereft of humanity by music ? Yes, I say by music. 
It is the spirit-stirring drum, and the ear-piercing fife, 
which makes them raving maniacs, insensible to pity, 
insensible to love. 

" Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, 
To soften rocks or bend a knotted oak." 

So sings Congreve ; but don't believe a word of it. 
If music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, how 
comes it that so many ferocious crimes are every day 
committed in the very lanes and alleys where the organ- 
grinders are grinding, the German bands braying, and 
the ballad-singers bleating all day long? If music 
hath charms to soften rocks and bend the knotted oaks, 
how comes it that the rocks in Scotland, where the bag- 
pipes are eternally droning, are still as hard as adamant, 
and that the oaks in Greenwich Park, where people are 
continually singing, are still as knotty as Mr. Browning's 
poetry? Answer me that if you please, or evermore 
hold your peace. The practice of having music played 
during dinner is highly objectionable, not to say danger- 
ous. If a man has a good ear, he will measure his 
mastication by the music, and the consequences may be 
very serious. If the band plays the " Dead March " in 



THE MISERIES OF MUSIC. 221 

Saul, he may be an hour over an omelette ; if they play 
" Pop goes the Weasel " or an Irish jig, his teeth will 
keep time with the rollicking air, and he will run the 
risk of being choked. Thus you see that, go where we 
may or do what we will, Music is still an endless source 
of worry and annoyance. It is all very fine for you to 
throw in my teeth what Shakespeare has written about 
the iniquity of the man who hath no music in himself, 
and the inferential excellence of the man who hath. It 
is all stuff and nonsense. Some of the very best men I 
have ever known could not hum " The Bay of Biscay," 
or anything else, though their lives depended upon it ; 
and some of the most disagreeable, good-for-nothing 
people I have ever met were caterwauling morning, 
noon, and nights. Why, bless my heart, I have the 
happy privilege of knowing a man who, though he has 
not a note of music in his voice, and could not for the 
dear life of him tell " Ye Banks and Braes " from 
" Yankee Doodle," is everlastingly endeavoring to sing. 
I had as soon listen to the cats on the tiles, or the owls 
in the ivy-bushes. Yet, you may take my word of honor 
for it, that man, all unmusical though he be, is a paragon 
of men. He is as near perfection as any human being 
can ever hope to approach. Let the poets say what 
they may, Music has a demoralizing, infuriating effect, 
and the less you have to do with it the better for your 
neighbors and yourself. Did it ever happen to you to 
live next door to a man who was learning to play the 
flute ? If so, was there ever a day in the year that you 
did not thirst for his blood ? Of course there was not. 
Sicilian tyrants never invented any such torture as to 
dwell within earshot of a fellow who is learning the 
flute. For my own part I can conscientiously affirm 



222 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

that the only enjoyment I ever got out of music of any 
sort was the indirect fun I derived from reading that 
splendid little story about the Primitive Methodists, 
somewhere in Cornwall, who, not having among them 
any one who had the requisite skill to play the organ, 
purchased a mechanical self-playing instrument. At a 
stated period in the service on the first Sunday after the 
arrival of the machine from London, a venerable Metho- 
dist wound it up very solemnly. Imagine the horror 
and consternation of the congregation on finding their 
ears saluted, not with the " Old Hundredth," but with 
" The Pretty Little Ratcatcher's Daughter." In vain 
did they subject the organ to all manner of practical 
remonstrances, in vain did they attempt to induce it 
either to change its tune or hold its peace. Finding it 
irreclaimable, a couple of able-bodied Methodists lifted 
it on their shoulders and carried it out of the chapel. 
• But matters were not to be thus easily arranged. True, 
the organ was turned out and placed ignominiously in a 
garden hard by ; but, having been once wound up, the 
scampish instrument was bound to go through the whole 
category of its airs, and for fully half an hour the con- 
gregation was doomed to hear it shouting out of doors 
that Champagne Charlie was its name. The explana- 
tion of this marvellous proceeding was that the organ- 
builders had made the mistake of sending to the Primi 
tives in Cornwall an organ which was intended for the 
Hall-by-the-Sea at Margate. The Methodists, who are 
most worthy and virtuous people, were scandalized be- 
yond expression ; but their sad mishap only serves to 
illustrate the truth of my proposition, that music is at 
the bottom of half the miseries of human life. 



THE WITCHERY OF MANNER. 223 



THE WITCHERY OF MANNER. 

\!\ ANNER is beyond question one of the most mar- 
vellous mysteries of our nature. I now allude 
more particularly to personal manner, and the favor, in- 
fluence, and pre-eminence which some people enjoy 
among their fellows by reason of that magic endow- 
ment. Who can explain the witchery of a gracious, 
genial manner ? Whence does it come ? In what does 
it consist ? What is the source and secret of its enchant- 
ing spell ? There are men and women who attract our 
confidence at a glance. You have not been in their 
company more than a minute or two, nor have you and 
they exchanged more than half-a-dozen words, before 
you feel at home with them. They have a gentle, un- 
affected courtesy, a frankness of look, a suavity of tone, 
as natural to them as is its lustre to a jewel or its fra- 
grance to a flower. There is a nameless something — a 
"jc ne sais quoi" as the French phrase it, in their air 
and demeanor, in the expression of their eyes, in the 
radiance of their brows, in the smile that plays sweetly 
around their lips, in the very sound of their voices, 
which bespeaks sympathy with you and wins its way 
irresistibly to your heart. They have about them that 
touch of nature which makes the whole world kin. 
From the snow-fields and icebergs of the Arctic Circle 
to the golden orange gardens and silver olive groves of 
southern Italy, is not a change pleasanter or more com- 
plete than from the cold, inhospitable company and the 
barren arid talk of commonplace persons to the delight- 



224 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

ful conversation and benignant companionship of such 
people as these. It is manner that makes all the differ- 
ence. " Manner maketh man," says the old proverb, 
nor man alone, but woman also. This it is that ineffably 
enhances the charms of the loveliest face and causes 
one to forget the plainness of the least comely. " Where 
is it ? " asks Mr. Thackeray. " What is it — the secret 
which makes one little hand the dearest of all ? " Is it 
not manner ? After depicting with masterly skill the 
personal perfections of Haidee, her fine features and 
matchless form, Byron illustrates her crowning glory by 
one of the simplest, but, at the same time, one of the 
happiest similes in the whole range of English poetry : — 

" and her manner 
Shed hovering graces round her, like a banner." 

To realize the poetic value of this image, picture to 
yourself what wonderful beauty there is in a banner of 
any kind, whether in the standard of battle or in the 
trembling pennant of a ship cleaving her foamy track 
through the waters, or in the flag waving in the wind 
from the battlements of some grand old castle. What 
a grace for example does the flag floating from Windsor 
Castle give to that superb structure, and to the wood- 
land landscape that surrounds it ! What an air of refine- 
ment that radiant ensign imparts to the whole scene ! 
Just such is the effect of manner. I have present to 
my memory, as I write, a woman now in Paradise, whom 
to have known was indeed to have loved. She was not 
beautiful, but she was delightful. Go where she might 
she brought sunshine with her. Her friends were ever 
the happier for her coming, ever the sadder for her 
going. She had a tear for every sorrow, a smile for 



THE WITCHERY OF MANNER. 2 2$ 

every joy. Her sympathetic manner soothed and 
brightened every one. Never have I seen a woman 
who verified so accurately Young's melodious verses : — 

" What's female beauty but an air divine, 
Through which the soul's more gentle graces shine ; 
They, like the sun, irradiate all between, 
The body charms because the mind is seen." 

There is the whole pith of the question. Nothing so 
tries my patience as to be told by the apologists of a 
brutal man that I must excuse his brutality on account 
of his manner. " Oh ! never mind ; it is only his man- 
ner." This is begging the whole question. In his 
odious manner dwells his whole offence. It is of his 
manner that I complain. Let him mend it. Alas ! as 
well might you ask him to fly to the moon. Whether in 
man or woman, manner is the out-come of the inner 
nature. So it was regarded by the ancient Romans, 
who used the same word — " mores " — to signify both 
manners and morals. It is a vulgar error, and worthy 
of the vulgar, since nothing can be more absurd, to re- 
gard rude, disagreeable people, as good-hearted. What 
fudge ! Humanity even in its best types is but frail, and 
I can entirely understand that a man of sound and sweet 
nature may occasionally indulge in outbursts of passion. 
The warmth of his heart finds its way into his temper ; 
but the remorse of such a man is generally in excess of 
his offence, and the true manliness of his disposition 
ever prompts him to make all the atonement in his 
power for the annoyance he may have caused to his 
neighbors. But to tell me that that man can have a good 
heart who is systematically perverse, cross-grained, 
morose, impolite, and regardless of the feelings of 
IS 



226 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

others, is to insult my understanding. You might as 
well tell me that that is a good apple-tree which invari- 
ably produces sour apples. Those sullen scoundrels, 
whose general deportment, bleak, dismal, and dreary, re- 
minds one of that lake in the Helvetian Alps, to which 
tradition tells us the spirit of Pontius Pilate has been 
banished, can be civil enough when they please ; but that 
is only when their own private interests are to be served 
by civility. From such men I always part with joy, ever 
longing to address them in the language of Jacques to 
Orlando, " God be with you ! Let us meet as little as 
we can." The charms of manner are hopelessly beyond 
the reach of such men ; and for this obvious reason, 
that they want the inner and spiritual grace of which 
manner is but the outward and visible sign. 

Politeness has been well described as benevolence in 
trifles; and if this definition is true, it is out of the 
question that they can be truly polite in whose nature 
there is no principle of* benevolence. A winning man- 
ner is wholly unattainable by those who, always studi- 
ous of their own profit and convenience, have no thought 
for the happiness of others. " We talk of human life as 
a journey," says a brilliant writer, "but how variously is 
that journey performed ! There are some who come 
forth, girt and shod and mantled, to walk on velvet 
lawns and smooth terraces, where every gale is arrested 
and every beam is tempered. There are others who 
walk on the Alpine paths of life against driving misery, 
through stormy sorrows, over sharp afflictions with bare 
feet and naked breast, jaded, mangled, and chilled." 
Marvellous, indeed, are the contrasts of destiny ; but if 
travellers wending their way along the same road would 
but practice the small sweet courtesies of life and culti- 



THE WITCHERY OF MANNER. 227 

vate the charms that dwell* in manner, how much 
smoother and pleasanter the journey would be ! Instead 
of pursuing such a course, it too often happens that the 
pilgrims view one another with mutual distrust and 
aversion, regarding their own comfort alone, and dis- 
playing at periods of common danger a sullen inflexi- 
bility which circumstances cannot influence, pity soften 
reason subdue. The little-minded and pretentious are 
blind to the virtues of their neighbors, and thus fail to 
find either pleasure or advantage in their society. Of 
this rest confidently assured, that modesty is the com- 
panion of worth, and that a generous appreciation of 
others is the head-spring of a noble and endearing man- 
ner. I never yet knew a man of real power who was 
not diffident of his own ability, and fondly appreciative 
of ability in his friends. The good and gifted make to 
themselves lofty ideals, and finding them difficult of 
attainment, are modest. Let not their modesty be set 
down to want either of merit or spirit. 

" Ah ! they speak best who best express 
Their inability to speak ; 
And none are strong but who confess 
With happy skill that they are weak." 

" Manner," says Lord Chesterfield, " must adorn 
knowledge and smooth its way through the world." 

But care must be taken to distinguish between the 
true thing and its base counterfeit. A gracious, genial 
manner has nothing in common with that detestable 
form of insincere courtesy known as " blarney." It 
were much better that a man should be as rough as a 
polar bear than that his politeness should develop into 
the rank luxuriance of " blarney," which is but another 
name for humbug. True nobility of demeanor comes 



22 8 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

from " high thoughts throned on a heart of courtesy." 
Any politeness not so originating is worthless. Being, 
as it is, the effluence of inner worth, manner is indepen- 
dent of courtly etiquette and ceremonious observance, 
and wholly irrespective of conventional distinctions. It 
abounds wherever nature's gentlemen are found, whether 
in court, camp, or cottage. You may read it in the cheery 
smile and frank bearing of the sailor ; in the cordial 
" bonhomie " of the soldier, gentle as brave ; in the bluff, 
genial pleasantry of the ploughman whistling at the 
plough ; in the hearty untutored courtesy of the honest 
mechanic. It is equally the heritage of prince and 
peasant, and, emanating in each from common goodness 
of heart, constitutes a bond of fellowship between them, 
which no difference of rank or fortune can destroy. So 
much for manner in its purely personal aspects ; but 
manner has an artistic as well as a social significance. 
It gives character to a man's work, " Le style c'est de 
Vhomme" says Buff on, with perfect truth. It is not so 
much what a man does, as the way he does it ; not so 
much what he says as the way he says it, that creates 
effect and produces pleasure. "Nil dictum quod non 
prius dictum methodus solus artificem ostendit." " Nothing 
can be said that has not been said already, the style of 
saying it alone bespeaks the artist," was the astute re- 
mark of Petronius Arbiter. The same song or story 
which from some lips comes as heavily as lead, drops 
from others like a shower of pearls. One actor will put 
you to sleep with a recitation, which, spoken by another, 
would set your blood dancing. The finest sermon in 
the world, delivered by a preacher who has no knowledge 
of manner, falls on the most devout congregation even 
as the sound of the trumpet on a dead charger's ear. 



WHISTLING. 



229 



Let the same discourse be spoken by a true orator, and 
mark how thrilling will be the effect ! See with what 
breathless delight the hearers will watch 

" The expressive glance whose subtle comment draws, 
Entranced attention and a mute applause ; 
Gesture that marks, with force and feeling fraught, 
A sense in silence and a will in thought" 

Such is the witchery of manner, and happy indeed are 
they who possess the priceless gift. 



WHISTLING. 

AJEVERTHELESS, I am decidedly of opinion. That 
will do. Well begun is half done. We are now 
under weigh. We have made a good commencement ; 
having said, " nevertheless, I am decidedly of opinion," 
I have rushed in medias res, and, to vary the metaphor, 
am sailing in the eye of the wind, as mariners are wont 
strangely to phrase it. Had my first word been " not- 
withstanding," I should have come to a dead-lock, and 
should not have been able, for the life of me, to budge 
an inch farther ; but having set out with " nevertheless," 
all is well. In the composition of these essays there 
are only three things which I find a difficulty in man- 
aging. One is the beginning, another is the middle, a 
third is the end. But for these three little matters, I 
should get on like a house on fire, as a body may say, 
and these treatises of mine would be productive of as 
little trouble to me as they are of pleasure to you. It is 



230 ERR A TIC ESSA VS. 

in writing as in all other affairs. There are many ob- 
stacles to be surmounted, but the most arduous of all is 
the commencement. Blessed be Minerva and the Muses 
nine, I have hit upon a happy phrase to begin with, and 
tacking back to it, I read it now, " to mine great re- 
freshment," as poor Robinson Crusoe said of his glass 
of rum. Cavillers may perhaps object that when a man 
opens either a book or an essay with " nevertheless," it 
is not altogether as clear as the sun in midsummer what 
reservation he means to cover by the word, there being 
no foregoing statement ; but people who would take ex- 
ception so captiously are past arguing with. " D 

you, sir, where is your religion?" says an irascible old 
gentleman in one of Cumberland's comedies to his scape- 
grace of a son. I dislike strong language ; but under 
the bitter provocation of the present moment I can't 
help exclaiming, " Bless your dear heart, where is your 
imagination ? if you cannot picture to yourself what I 
was thinking of before I said ' nevertheless.' " I hate 
to be bullied. If you will only keep your temper, I will 
admit you into my confidence. My thoughts were wend- 
ing their way thus : — I am passionately fond of music, 
nevertheless I am decidedly of opinion that whistling is 
a highly objectionable practice. And so, indeed, it is. 
Have you ever observed with what a mania for whistling 
the street-boys of London are possessed? Go where 
they may, do what they will ; in sunshine as in shadow ; 
in business as in pleasure ; morning, noon, and night, 
they are everlastingly whistling. An old proverb bids 
us beware of a crowing hen and a whistling woman, but 
the caution, in so far as it relates to woman — lovely 
woman ! — is wholly uncalled for. I don't see why a 
woman should not whistle, and crow, too, for the mat- 



WHISTLING 



231 



ter of that, if so disposed. Man, to be sure, forbids her 
to whistle, just as he forbids her to smoke, to wear a 
glass in one eye, to play the drum, and to do many 
other things that he takes delight in himself ; but that 
only shows what a brutal tyrant he is. Why does he 
not command the boys to desist from whistling ? Be- 
cause he is a coward. He is alraid of the boys, and 
knows they will defy him ; but if a woman presumes to 
whistle, he instantly reproves her or compels her to de- 
sist — poor thing ! Is that fair ? Certainly not. It is 
intolerable. If women were permitted to whistle, they 
would do so with good taste and good feeling, as they 
do everything; they would whistle melodiously, and 
only within doors and suitable seasons ; whereas these 
plaguy boys, who infest the streets of London, whistle 
without regard to rhyme or reason, in-doors and out-of- 
doors, in spring, summer, autumn, and winter, and, in 
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, most discordantly, 
and without the slightest respect for tune. Their favor- 
ite air is the air the old cow died of, and this they per- 
form with merciless pertinacity, little caring what havoc 
they may spread, either among cows or men. It is 
enough to drive one mad to hear these urchins whistling 
all over London till they are well-nigh black in the face. 
It is, upon my honor. If they whistle as they go, " for 
want of thought," it is a thousand pities they have not 
something to think of. Thought might " destroy their 
paradise," but what of that? It would at least save 
from torture men who are old enough to be their fathers, 
and some of whom by the way are their fathers. 

Italian organ-grinders are bad enough, Swiss pipers 
are still worse, but I am by no means sure that our own 
whistling boys are not the worst of all. The grinders 



232 • ERRATIC ESSAYS. 

and pipers are horrid nuisances, to be sure ; but, after 
all is said and done, they are periodic not perpetual; 
they may be " run in " by the police if they won't move 
on ; and villanous as are their noises, they bear some 
faint resemblance to airs ; but the boys are eternally 
whistling; they defy not the police alone, but horse, 
foot, and artillery, and their noises, generally speaking, 
bear about as much resemblance to a tune as does the 
filing of a saw to one of Beethoven's Sonatas. What 
pleasure they can possibly find in the utterance of such 
sounds, is a mystery past human comprehension. I was 
riding one day in a carriage and pair from Queen's v 
Elm, Brompton, to Piccadilly Circus. Presently there 
came into the omnibus a very small boy, who had prob- 
ably seen some thirteen summers, and peradventure as 
many winters — a diminutive child for his age, and sit- 
ting right in front of me and looking me steadily be- 
tween the eyes, he began to whistle something having a 
sickly resemblance to " Tommy, make room for your 
uncle ! " I tried to enter into conversation with the 
boy, in the hope that being lured into talk, he would 
find it impossible to talk as well. But no, he was not 
to be caught. I then told him the story about Quin, the 
actor, whose habit it was to play Othello regularly once 
a year for a charitable object, until at last he lost his 
front teeth, whereupon he observed, " I played Othello 
as long as I was able, but I'll be hanged if I will whistle it 
for any one." " From this remark you may infer, my 
boy, what an ignoble noise whistling must be, and how 
unworthy of refined lips." He simply winked at me, 
and kept on at his ear-piercing performance as lustily 
as ever. When we had arrived at Constitution Hill, I 
pulled out a brand-new sixpence, and addressed him in 






WHISTLING. 



233 



these words : " Robert Walpole has averred that every 
man has his price. I suppose that as much may be 
said of every boy. Here's sixpence for you, young man, 
on condition that you won't whistle any more as long as 
I am in the omnibus." " All right, Guv'nor," was the 
urchin's ready reply, and thenceforward he was as mute 
as an oyster — not the whistling oyster, fortunately, for 
that " native " would have been a " settler " for me, — 
but as any ordinary, well-behaved mollusc. For the 
rest of my little journey I enjoyed perfect tranquillity. 
But what a stigma it is upon our civilization, in this 
much-vaunted nineteenth century, to have to say that 
that blessing would have been denied to me if I had not 
gratified a child's vanity by calling him a young man, 
and his avarice by giving him sixpence ! But peace is 
above all price, and I willingly admit that I did not pay 
him too dearly for his whistle, or, rather, for the silenc- 
ing of it. 

Boys are not the only offenders. There are men — to 
their confusion be it spoken ! — who, being old enough 
to know better, yet whistle, and that incessantly, with 
the twofold result of bringing ridicule upon themselves 
and discomfort on others. Addison tells us of a com- 
petition at a village festival, where " the prize was a 
guinea, to be conferred upon the ablest whistler, who 
could whistle clearest, and go through his tune without 
laughing." A match of that sort is all well enough, pro- 
vided always the competitors have ears as well as lips 
for music. Even in London, one happens once in a 
blue-moon upon a professional whistler whose perform- 
ance is exceedingly musical. Such a fellow did I hear 
whistle to a harp accompaniment, in an alley near the 
Bank of England, a few days before Christmas, and 



234 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

admirably he did it. No thrush or robin was ever half 
so melodious ; but whistlers of that kind are almost as 
rare as fish beneath the plough-share. Indeed, you 
may take it for granted that whatever music there is in 
the streets worth listening to is to be found in the City, 
the liberal habits of City men attracting thither min- 
strels with some little pretence to musical skill. I have 
heard a fellow whistle upon the spout of a tea-pot in 
Basinghall Street, and though one may have no par- 
ticular desire to drink mocha out of the instrument on 
which he performs, one cannot help recognizing the 
ability he displays. But what no living creature, with 
any pretension to be regarded as a human being, can 
hear without indignant scorn, is the perpetual noise of 
whistling kept up in the streets, mostly by boys, but not 
unfrequently by men also, alike so ill-qualified for the 
task that they could not turn a tune though their lives 
depended on it. 

But grievous as are the social abuses of whistling, it 
is not without its poetic uses. The boatswain's whistle 
piping all hands to quarters has done good service 
before now in nautical ballads, as Dibdin and Bennet 
can attest. Even the shrill whistle of the locomotive, 
as it darts at night with lightning speed over meadow 
and mountain, moss and moor, is not without a certain 
mystical and weird charm. Still more romantic is the 
sound of the wind whistling through a pine-forest or 
over the darkling sea. When ploughing was still a 
picturesque operation, ere yet horses and oxen had been 
supplanted by steam-pots in the task of traction, it was 
an understood thing that the man who drove the team 
should whistle at the plough's tail. Thus Milton talks 
of the hour 



WHISTLING. 

" When the ploughman near at hand 
Whistles o'er the furrowed land." 



2 35 



And Gray would have him indulge in his favorite pas- 
time when no longer on duty : — 

" The ploughman leaves the task of day, 
And trudging homeward, whistles on the way." 

In France to whistle after a person means a down- 
right insult, but in Scotland the same practice would 
seem to have a complimentary significance, as we may 
infer from the fact that there is mention in Caledonian 
song of a young woman who, so far as from taking of- 
fence, said to her lover one fine day, " Whistle, and I'll 
come to you, my lad." Tradition says that the gentle- 
man did as he was told ; that the lady was no worse 
than her word ; that they were married, and had a very 
large family. Othello, on the other hand, treated the 
matter in a very different light, and threatened to dis- 
pose of Desdemona in a whistling fashion suggestive of 
sensations the reverse of comfortable : — 

" If I do prove her haggard, 
Though that her jesses were my dear heart's strings, 
I'd whistle her off, and let her down the wind 
To prey at fortune." 

Alas ! poor Desdemona. But there ! an obstinate 
man will have his way, and it's of no use to talk to him. 
But revenons a nos moutons — the mutton-headed boys 
who whistle in our streets. They are a worry and a 
distraction — a bore. and a bother. A whistling bull- 
finch may be tolerated, but a whistling boy-finch is a 
nuisance. The rhetorical, poetical, nautical, agricul- 
tural, and amatory uses of whistling are commendable 



2 3 6 ERR A TIC ESSA YS. 

enough, and may not be interfered with; but street- 
whistling is an abomination, and cannot be any longer 
permitted. That's the long and the short of the 
matter. 



11 SAUCY DOUBTS AND FEARS." 

" A SOLDIER and af eared." Such was the taunt 
**? addressed by Lady Macbeth to her trembling 
lord, and never did wife aim at her husband's heart a 
shaft of more poignant sarcasm. Yet the contrast of 
ideas, however ignoble in fancy, is by no means without 
warrant in fact. There are well-attested cases, not a 
few, of soldiers having turned and fled when first they 
went into action, who, after their ears had grown " more 
Irish and less nice " to the report of firearms, walked 
without blenching to the cannon's mouth and performed 
prodigies of valor. " Who's afraid ? " is a familiar in- 
terrogatory, to which the honest answer is " everybody." 
" Fear," says Dr. Johnson, " is one of the passions of 
human nature of which it is impossible to divest it." 
You remember that the Emperor Charles V., when he 
read upon the tombstone of a Spanish nobleman, " Here 
lies one who never knew fear," replied, with sly humor, 
"Then he never snuffed a candle with his fingers." 
The fact is that we are all " bound in to saucy doubts 
and fears " of some sort or another, and the very man 
who is as brave as a lion in great emergencies may be 
as timid as a dove on occasions so trivial as to provoke 
the laughter of spectators. This is doubtless what is 
meant by the homely old proverb, " There is a skeleton 



« SA UCY DOUBTS AND FEARS." 237 

in every cupboard." I know a man six-foot-two in his 
stockings, who won the Victoria Cross for exceeding 
great valor on the field of battle, but who would run 
into a rat hole from a wife who hardly reaches his 
elbow. Another man know I who has done heroic 
things in his time, such as plunging into angry seas 
and houses on fire for the rescue of a fellow creature, 
and who, I do verily believe, would face the Devil in 
brass for any good cause, yet has he such a horror of a 
dog that he would not stay in the same room with one 
for any earthly consideration. Men who would scorn 
to turn their backs upon a, foe of flesh and blood have 
grown pale before now at the thought of a ghost. We 
have the authority of Augustus Caesar for the statement 
that Suetonius was afraid to be in the dark without a 
companion. Every one's experience will supply him, 
either from his own knowledge of himself, or from his 
observation of his neighbors, with instances of timidity 
equally irrational, though in both quarters there may 
be no lack of true courage in the presence of real 
danger. 

Nor is it alone the possibility of our own little candle 
of a life being swiftly blown out that creates uneasiness 
even in the hearts of the valiant. We fear more for 
others than for ourselves, and are often at a loss to * 
account for our apprehensions. Like meteoric stones 
falling, we know not wherefore, out of the azure sky, 
are the thoughts of coming sorrow with which the heart 
is suddenly darkened and oppressed, at the moment, it 
may be, when the horizon of our destiny looks cloud- 
less. We pause for the footfall of fate on our ear 
u Nescio quid mihi animus fircesagit mali" What lover 
is there, or husband or wife, or father or mother, or 



238 ERR A TIC ESSA VS. 

friend, endowed with any gift of sensibility, who, gazing 
on the object of fond affection, has not at times been 
haunted by the thought, the dark, disheartening thought, 
that the Beloved may die. In our own case, "the 
readiness is all," as Hamlet says, but it is no such easy 
matter to give up those who are dearer to us than life. 
There is no anguish more bitter than that which we ex- 
perience in the very contemplation of such a contin- 
gency. But apart and distinct from these tragical 
imaginings of supreme woe are the gloomy forebodings 
of minor disasters, wherewith our fancies are occasion- 
ally affrighted. You cannot, for the life of you, under- 
stand the depression with which your spirit is at times 
overcast. You may ascribe it to the weather, or to 
some familiar physiological cause ; but the true origin 
of it belongs to our immortal being, and like it baffles 
comprehension. A sudden sense of incapacity seizes 
the most gifted minds. The pencil of the finest painter 
sheds no color ; the pen of the noblest writer refuses 
its office ; the orator is dumb ; the musician knows no 
touch of melody ; the greatest of actors surrenders his 
inspiration to stage-fright. " Our sensibilities are so 
acute, the fear of being silent makes us mute." And it 
is worthy of remark, and may be stated for the refuta- 
* tion of the vulgar and supercilious, that the bravest 
and best natures are precisely those which suffer most 
acutely from the visitation of these " saucy doubts and 
fears." A dullard is easily pleased, so cold is his imag- 
ination, and so tenantless is his mind ; but the truly 
gifted and highly cultured make to themselves lofty 
ideals of merit, and however they may delight others, 
rarely succeed in satisfying themselves. They are 
modest, not because they may not fulfil your concep- 



•'SAUCY DOUBTS AND FEARS. 



239 



tions of excellence, but because they cannot realize 
their own. It continually happens that men of this 
poetic temperament mistrust themselves, and are haunted 
with a certain indefinable presentment of coming calam- 
ity. So it was in varying senses and degrees with Pope, 
Gray, Cowper, Byron, Moore, and Mangan. 

D'ailkurs there is much comfort in the thought 
that our doubts are frequently but shadows, and that 
Heaven disappoints our fears oftener, far oftener, than 
our hopes. 

Mental superiority has its penalties as well as its 
privileges, and among those penalties is unquestionably 
to be classed a degree of sensitiveness to which meaner 
natures are strangers. The higher the organization, 
the keener will be the susceptibility to disheartening 
influences. It is with men as with the animals whom 
we 'are pleased to designate as the "lower." A race- 
horse, a true "blood," is the most nervous of living 
creatures. On the slightest excitement he quivers in 
every nerve and fibre, while a dull Flemish cart-horse 
plods sluggishly along, uncaring for an earthquake. I 
have known many men of many ranks and races, but I 
never knew a man worth his salt who was not in some 
sense " nervous." The most heroic are oftentimes the 
most nervous. A man of brilliant imagination will 
doubtless invest an alarming occasion with terrors 
more than real, but it by no means follows that he will 
be less ready than your muddy-mettled rascal to con- 
front true danger ; on the contrary, that very rapidity 
and brightness of intellect which exaggerated the perils 
will probably supply resources of deliverance. Bravery 
consists not in being insensible to fear, but rather in 
retaining such self-possession in danger as will enable 



240 



ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 



you to meet the emergency, and present a valiant front 
to adverse fortune. But the fancy is easily distressed, 
and very wonderful is it to think what trivial matters 
will suffice to alarm it. To some people, celerity of motion 
is very disquieting ; and for my own poor part, I am 
fain to confess that I do not feel particularly comfort- 
able when travelling by express at the rate of a mile a 
minute. A much lower rate of speed alarmed a timid 
passenger by the York Mail in the good old coaching 
days. " Oh ! Mr. Coachman," she inquired, " is there 
any fear ? " " Plenty of fear, ma'am," replied the Jehu, 
" but no danger ; " which was reassuring. There are 
people of a highly imaginative type who, whether at 
home or abroad, and on whatsoever pursuit intent, 
would seem to be in constant communication with some 
other world than this : — 

" They hear a voice you cannot hear, 

Which says they must not stay ; 
They see a hand you cannot see, 

Which beckons them away." 

Certain hours of the day are more promotive than 
others of uneasy sensations. In the dead waste and 
middle of the night ghosts are wont to walk. At early 
dawn, the fancy sometimes plays strange freaks, and in 
the " dubia lux " of twilight the dim outlines of things 
assume fantastic shapes. Night, too, has her fears, and 
the least imaginative of us, musing alone in a dark gal- 
lery of a country-house, may have tremulous thoughts, 
not unlike those that disquieted the mind of Don Juan 
under like circumstances : — 

" As Juan mused on mutability, 
Or on his mistress — terms synonymous — 
No sound except the echo of his sigh 
Or step ran sadly through that antique house ; 



AN ISLAND OF TRANQUIL DELIGHTS. 2 \l 

When suddenly he heard, or thought so, nigh, 
A supernatural agent, or a mouse, 
Whose little nibbling rustle will embarrass 
Most people as it plays along the arras." 

For some minds fear has a strange fascination, and 
scenes such as Llanberis or the pass of Glencoe grow 
singularly attractive at nightfall, more particularly when 
the thunder rolls, and the lightning flashes, and the rain 
comes down in torrents. I remember your having said, 
in one of your essays last summer, dear reader, that you 
regarded a thunderstorm, a raging sea, and a lady in a 
passion with her husband, as the three most sublime 
spectacles in nature, and I am altogether of your opinion. 
Probably in each case the sublimity is enhanced by the 
sensation of terror which each inspires. 



AN ISLAND OF TRANQUIL DELIGHTS. 

No. I. 

T CAUGHT the London, Brighton, and South-Coast 
train in the very nick of time, and after a swift, 
smooth ride of about two hours, turned up at Havant, 
whence there is a branch line to Hayling Island. Ar- 
rived at Havant, you find yourself seized with an irresis- 
tible inclination to indulge in the verbal turpitude of a 
pun. You turn to your fellow-traveller, whoever he may 
be, and ask him whether he has been at Havant before. 
He answers, in the innocence of his soul, " I havrCt" 
whereupon you express your indignation that he should 
16 



242 ERRATIC ESSAYS. 

indulge in so petty a joke. " I am surprised, sir, that 
you should make a jest of a civil question." " I pro- 
test, sir, I havrft" he replies. " There you go again ! " 
you say, in a towering passion. And so the angry re- . 
crimination continues, till the whistle from the engine 
of the local train warns you to give up such foolery. 
" 'Avant avaunt ! " you exclaim to yourself,. as you plunge 
into your carriage, and, " lighting up," surrender your- 
self to the gentle reveries induced by nicotine. The 
little railway from Havant to the island is the funniest 
little railway in the world. It is a single line, — I do 
not mean thereby that it is unmarried, but simply that 
it has no double set of iron trams. It is a serpentine 
sort of line, and, winding its way circuitously over a long 
wooden bridge and through a marshy district, indulges 
in such a series of tortuous escapades that I have called 
it the " Colly-Wobble " Railway, by which name I desire 
it to be known to posterity. The engine-driver is a 
stately, elderly gentleman, to whom one feels instinc- 
tively disposed to raise one's hat. The guard, a fair- 
haired man, with a straw-colored beard, is a clever, civil 
fellow, who has " all his work cut out for him," as the 
saying goes, seeing that he has to act not only as guard, 
but also as ticket-collector and porter. Nay, more, he 
has to officiate as station-master as well at Langston 
and North Hayling, the stations at both those places 
resembling sentry-boxes, wherein dwelleth no sentry 
nor any human being to look after the arrivals and 
departures of the train. All is done by the many-hand- 
ed guard, who is an army of officials in himself. On 
reaching the terminus at Hayling, I was greeted with a 
huge smile from the portrait of Mr. Perry Davis, the 
Pain-killer, and I was informed of what I knew before I 



AN ISLAND OF TRANQUIL DELIGHTS. 243 

left town, to wit, that Mr. Taylor, of Pimlico, is provid- 
ed with wagons and horses for the removal of my fur- 
niture. Let the Sheriff of Middlesex take note of it. 
But strange to say, I was left hopelessly in the dark 
respecting the name of the newspaper which has the 
largest circulation in the world. Nay, more, though I 
have spent several days in the island since then, I have 
never once laid eyes upon an advertisement giving any 
such information, a fact to which I invite the particular 
attention of the brilliant, and, as I had fondly imagined, 
ubiquitous journal whose head-quarters are in Fleet 
Street. If the railway from Havant to Hayling Island 
is the funniest little railway in the world, the omnibus 
which conveys you from the station at South Hayling 
to the Royal Hotel is, beyond question, the funniest 
little conveyance of the sort to be found in any country 
from the Equator to either Pole. This I say in full re- 
membrance of the New Forest omnibus, which, until I 
visited Hayling, I had imagined to be the strangest vehicle 
of the kind on earth. But the Hayling omnibus beats 
it hollow. It is as round as a pumpkin and as red as 
blood, and so low in the roof that a man of average sta- 
ture sitting inside must bend his head in the most 
obsequious manner. I have ridden in all manner of 
vehicles, from a wheelbarrow, in which I was once roll- 
ed — oh, how luxuriously ! — for half a mile along a coun- 
try road by a being of boundless goodness and beauty 
ineffable, to a Lapland sledge drawn by dogs and pur- 
sued by wolves, and thence to a tea-colored brougham 
in the Park, but never shall I forget my ride in the little 
Hayling omnibus, stooping, as I was, all the way. Right 
glad was I to get out of it, for " Frangi^non flecti" is the 
motto of my house. 



ERRATIC ESSAYS. 



244 

Hayling is a charming place, its charm consisting in 
its peacefulness. It is the very home of peace — a 
veritable island of tranquil delights, the delights dwell- 
ing altogether in the tranquillity. I do not remember 
to have ever before set foot in so quiet a spot having 
any pretensions to civilization. There may be, and 
doubtless there are, other islands utterly uninhabited, 
and therefore still quieter, but for an inhabited and even 
populous island within humanity's reach, it is the seren- 
est, most noiseless, most throbless region that fancy can 
conceive of or language depict. From Holborn to 
Hayling ! What a transition ! It is a change akin- to 
that from the lion to the lamb, or from a roaring sea to 
a calm, sequestered lake, or from a London lodging- 
house to a hermit's cave, or from wedded life to cham- 
bers in the Albany. Hayling is a " tight " little island, 
not, I should imagine, in the slang sense of intoxication 
— for ale-houses are few and far between, and I found, 
to my bitter mortification, that at the " Royal " and only 
hotel they were out of bottled beer — but rather in the 
signification of tidiness and trimness. It is richly 
cultivated, not a rood of soil being left untilled, and it is 
studded with comfortable farm-houses and cosy little 
homesteads. There is no trace of poverty anywhere ; 
everybody seems well off, and " take it easy " appears 
to be the rule of conduct with the islanders. How 
slowly they walk and talk, and what a blessed air of 
repose is around them one and all ! Nobody seems to 
be in a hurry. Nobody seems to have any business on 
hand that needs the slightest anxiety or activity. No- 
body puts himself out. Everybody takes it easy, and 
it does him good. Compare this with the uproar and 
turbulence of town, — the hurry-scurry of the Strand, the 






AN ISLAND OF TRANQUIL DELIGHTS. 245 

toil and turmoil of Ludgate Hill, the tearing to and fro 
in the City, the clamorous confusion of Charing Cross, 
the roar of Temple Bar ! Give me Hayling Island, 
where not a mouse is stirring, where the people seem to 
be moving about in a delicious dream, where every 
living creature is bound in a spell of repose, where the 
robins sing cheerily from every leafless branch, and 
where, save their voices, no other sound salutes your 
ear than that of the waves breaking in picturesque 
disarray upon the velvet sands. Yes ! give me Hayling 
Island, and you may have High Holborn and welcome, 
if you list. It is a depraved taste and very wicked, I 
dare say, but the longer I live the fonder I get of the 
country. I can't help it, but, say what you will, I must 
prefer a flower to a paving-stone, a tree to a chimney- 
pot, the sea to a sewer. 

The Island of Hayling is divided into two parishes, 
North Hayling and South Hayling ; and as in the great 
continent across the Atlantic, so likewise upon the coast 
of Hampshire, the Northerners and Southerners are 
not without their mutual little jealousies. How the 
Island came to be called " Hayling " is a mystery which 
the learned in local etymology may possibly have 
fathomed, but which passes the comprehension of the 
illiterate like you and me, dear reader. Can it be that 
it is always " hailing " there ? or that the people when 
they meet are " hailing " one another ? or that they are 
" ailing ? " or that they are " ale-ing ? " or that hay and 
ling are both to be found in the place ? I know not, I 
care not. All I know is that it is a right pleasant little 
island, and if you don't think so, you would do well not 
to go there. What care I ? Both in the North and 
South the Haylingers are an honest, hospitable race all 



2 46 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

the same, and a stranger (with money in his pocket) is 
sure of a hearty welcome. If an arrangement could be 
made with Nature for such a change in the currents of 
the ocean as would admit of the tide being always " in," 
Hayling Island would look brilliant and beautiful at all 
times ; but truth compels the admission that, though 
the southern coast of the island, which is washed by the 
English Channel, is always lovely to look upon, the 
other shores are dismal and marshy enough at low water. 
But there ! you cannot have it every way in this bother- 
ing world. Think yourself lucky that you have it any 
way, and be thankful. What is the use of grumbling ? 
There are one or two things — no more — which detract 
somewhat from the comfort of a residence in this Island 
of Tranquil Delights. Of these, the first is the extreme 
difficulty of getting anything to eat ; the second is the 
still more serious difficulty of getting anything to drink ; 
the third is the greatest difficulty of all, that of finding 
a place where to lay your head. Were it not for these 
deficiencies, there would be ample accommodation for 
all comers. There are but very few houses where 
lodgings can be had, either for love or money, and if 
you have not taken the" precaution of bringing down a 
leg of mutton, or some trifle of that kind, in your port- 
manteau or your pocket — a matter which wholly escaped 
my forethought — you are likely enough to go without a 
dinner. After a while, you fall into the ways of the 
people, and taking thought for to-morrow, order your 
provisions in good time ; but new comers would do well 
to bring some creature-comforts with them, to begin 
with. Another matter which causes some little un- 
easiness to a stranger is to observe how frequently he 
is threatened with being prosecuted with the utmost 



AN ISLAND OF TRANQUIL DELIGHTS. 247 

rigor of the law. Placards bearing this frightful menace 
stare at him from fields and gardens, and meet his 
terrified gaze in every direction. Notices that " no 
shooting nor dogs are allowed " are of continual re- 
currence. But the most appalling intimation of all is 
one to be read upon a white gate near the railway- 
station. It runs thus : — " Whoever does not shut this 
gate will be prosecuted." It was wide open the first 
time I saw it. What was I to do ? My teeth chattered 
in my head, my hair stood on end. I was " distilled to 
jelly with the act of fear." Oh, dear me ! what was I 
to do ? It was not I who had left the gate open — deuce 
take it! Then, why the dickens should I be compelled 
to shut it ? Answer me that. And yet if I left it open, 
I was to be prosecuted ! Tell it not in Chelsea, let it 
not be heard in St. John's Wood — I did leave it open ! 
As a free-born Briton, I scorned to be bullied. So I walk- 
ed away, leaving the gate as I had found it. Don't you 
think I was right ? Would not you have done the same ? 
How should any man dare to threaten me with prosecu- 
tion for not shutting his trumpery gate ? Let him shut 
it himself — freckle him ! 

Hayling is a very paradise for Sabbatarians ! If lit- 
tle is doing on week-days, nothing is doing on Sundays. 
The whole island seems asleep. Speak low ! " Break 
not, ye zephyrs, your chain of repose ! " You cannot get 
out of the island on a Sunday, unless indeed you choose 
to take the ferry across to Cumberland Fort, or to walk 
over that interminable bridge near Langston, and all 
the way into Havant. The Colly-Wobble Railway is 
locked up ; so, too, is the station ; no train runs ; the 
stately old engine-driver is puffing his pipe majesti- 
cally in front of his cottage ; the many-handed guard — 



248 ERR A TIC ESSA YS. 

he of the blue eyes and the straw-colored beard — is 
enjoying well-earned sleep either by his fireside or in 
the parish church, while the parson preacheth. And 
talking of churches, there are two — one, a comely, spa- 
cious edifice in South Hayling, the other a much smaller 
building of immemorial antiquity in the north. Among 
the monuments in the latter is one to Sarah Rogers, 
who many years ago died in her youth. It bears this 
inscription : — 

" Ye virgins fair, your fleeting charms survey, 
She once was all your tender hearts can say ; 
Let opening rose and drooping lilies tell, 
Like them she bloomed, and, ah ! like them she fell." 

This epitaph, written, as they tell you, by a young farm- 
er, is surely very beautiful, for its sweet, simple imagery, 
and gentle, unaffected pathos. 



No. II. 

The charm of a circle is its roundness ; of a woman, 
her temper ; of the tranquil island its tranquillity. It is 
only a man whose sad fate it is to dwell, for the great- 
er part of the year, in a city full of discordant clamor, 
who can appreciate at its true worth the delightful taci- 
turnity of the country. Arrived at some serene place 
where few other sounds salute his ear than the tinkling 
song of the brook, the warbling of the birds, or the sigh- 
ing of the zephyrs through the trees, peace falls upon 
his spirit like a delicious trance, and it is not without a 
shudder that his thoughts revert to the thousand-tongued 



AN ISLAND OF TRANQUIL DELIGHTS. 249 

Babylon from which he has escaped, where, not content 
with the uproar of myriads of wheels, men allow their 
nerves to be agonized, their health to be destroyed, and 
their peace of mind to be ruined by a variety of prevent- 
able and wholly unnecessary noises. Cock-crowing, 
dog-barking, and all the abominable discords of street 
music for example, are nuisances which might easily be 
prohibited. They are permitted, and even encouraged, 
to the misery of thousands and the discomfort of all. 
There is in the tragedy of Othello an exquisite bit of 
comedy between a clown and a couple of musicians. It 
is always omitted on the stage, and the more is the pity, 
for the fun, though brief, is very pungent. A couple of 
pipers are playing in front of the Moor's castle in Cyprus. 
Out comes the Clown, who accosts them thus : " Masters, 
here's money for you ; and the General so likes your 
music that he desires you, of all love, to make no more 
noise with it." To which the first musician replies, 
" Well, sir, we will not." " If," rejoins the Clown, "you 
have any music that may not be heard, to it again ! but, 
as they say, to hear music the General does not greatly 
care." We have none such, sir," makes answer the 
musician. " Then," returns the Clown in a tone of high 
command, " put your pipes in your bag : go ! Vanish 
into air ; away ! " and the musicians depart accordingly. 
Now that is just the way in which vagabond minstrels, 
whether in town or country, ought to be treated ; only 
that there is no reason why they should be paid for not 
torturing us. They should be compelled to " vanish " 
no richer than they had come. In Hayling there is no 
street-music ; nor, indeed, any street, for the matter of 
that. The oldest inhabitant cannot remember to have 
ever seen or heard either an organ-fiend or a hurdy-gur- 



250 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

dy-demon on the island ; but then, to be sure, the oldest 
inhabitant is celebrated all the world over for never re- 
membering anything, so that his evidence does not go 
for much. For my own part, I can conscientiously de- 
clare that the only music I have heard during my resi- 
dence here has been the lowing of a cow and the sweet 
pipe of the robin redbreast The place seems to be 
swarming with robins, and they sing with all their might 
and main from every other branch. But you must not 
run away with the idea that no noise whatever besides 
this is to be heard in the island. Of course you may 
think so if you please ; I don't mind ; but it is not the 
fact. Great guns are being fired so continuously for 
hours together from the batteries at Portsmouth and 
Portsea, and the report of the artillery comes booming 
across the ocean with an effect so alarmingly suggestive 
of maritime warfare, that a visitor of lively imagination 
and weak intellect might easily fancy that a succession 
of sea fights between the English and French was go- 
ing on every day in the week. 

The primitive habits of the Haylingers are delightful 
to behold. Theirs is a sweet, lovely, dead-alive — yea, 
much more dead than alive — old-world sort of island, 
where customs and practices which have long since dis- 
appeared from busier regions still flourish in primeval 
luxuriance. Spade-husbandry is said to be still in great 
favor with the farmers, though ploughing also is, prac- 
tised on every farm, and nobody who knows anything 
about agriculture (which I do not) can fail to be struck 
with the admirable skill of the ploughmen in their call- 
ing, their furrows being as straight as arrows. The fur- 
rows on their brows are semi-circular. It is a " harrow- 
ing " sight to see the peasants harrowing, for they don't 



AN ISLAND OF TRANQUIL DELIGHTS. 251 

seem to care three halfpence what discomfort they may 
cause to the snails and earthworms. (The price of this 
pun is £$. Post Office orders payable to me at the 
office of the publishers.) Not having any authentic in- 
formation upon the matter, either one way or the other, 
I am justified in asserting with the peremptory positive- 
ness of ignorance that there is no such thing as a steam- 
plough in the whole island. Most assuredly I have 
never seen one. Thrashing is still done in most places 
with the flail, though I know to my cost that there is a 
winnowing machine in North Hayling, for I was riding 
on the outside of a horse who, taking fright at its con- 
founded whizzing and rolling, bolted, and would infal- 
libly have thrown me had I not given him his head and 
let him have his own way. The sea was the saving of 
me, for when he came face to face with it his heart failed 
him, the cowardly brute, and rather than plunge into the 
briny he came to a dead stop, and it needed no little 
persuasion to induce him to jog home at a sling trot. 

That the Island of Tranquil Delights is indeed an 
abode of Arcadian simplicity, where even the ladies 
cling fondly to the fashions of the olden time, when 
every one was good, may be inferred from the fact, or 
rather the facts, that Since my arrival here I have seen 
one woman in a bonnet and another with pattens on. 
Ah, me ! how the memory of my salad days came back 
upon me as I gazed upon both gentlewomen ! I was a 
very young man indeed when last I saw a bonnet. I 
was a child — a mere " ch-ee-i-1-d," like a dear friend of 
mine in Pembridge Square— when last I saw a pair of 
pattens. But it is not the ladies alone who are conserva- 
tive of old habits in the Tranquil Island. I have met 
one man with straps to his trousers, another walking 



252 



ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 



about in a blue swallow-tailed coat with brass-buttons I 
Old-fashioned signs still swing in front of the wayside 
inns. Thus, for example, the " Olive Leaf Inn," kept 
by Mr. W. Goldring, coxswain of the Lifeboat, is signal- 
ized by a fairly-executed painting of a gammon of bacon, 
which the artist must have evolved from his inner con- 
sciousness, even as the German did his famous camel, 
for no such article of food is to be found in the island. 
The sign called to mind Oliver Goldsmith's well-known 
couplet — 

" As in some Irish houses, where things are so-so, 
A gammon of bacon hangs up for a show." 

A gentleman named Romeo Coombs keeps the " May 
Pole Inn," which has the look of a comfortable hostelry ; 
and hard-by is the shop of Mr. Barber, who advertises 
himself as a vendor of coffee, tea, tobacco, snuff, and 
pepper. His customers consume all these five articles 
simultaneously, and the effect upon their digestion is 
something surprising. But I grieve to say that greed of 
gain is not wholly unknown to the Haylingers. Of this 
sad fact we have a proof in the wanton destruction, a 
few months ago, of a magnificent yew tree, which once 
stood in front of the " Yew Tree Inn." The tree in 
question js believed to have been 700 years old. It was 
cut down in the bloom of its verdant tree-hood, while 
the village children were sporting beneath its immemo- 
rial branches. I was very indignant indeed when I was 
told of this act of Vandalism. I asked whether Mr. 
Gladstone, hatchet in hand, had been seen in these 
parts of late ? No ; he had not. I will do him the jus- 
tice to say that in this case, at all events, his conscience 
is clear. The tree was killed by order of a lady ; and 



AN ISLAND OF TRANQUIL DELIGHTS. 253 

right glad was I to hear that she only realized some- 
thing like 4/. from the sale of its noble corse. 

Whenever I visit a strange place I make a point of 
acquiring all particulars respecting the constabulary. You 
are, of course, at liberty to draw what uncharitable infer- 
ence you please from this avowal. " My withers are un- 
wrung \ " so I can afford to disregard your insinuations. 
The Island of Tranquil Delights boasts of but one police- 
man, a fact which speaks volumes, nay libraries, for the 
good conduct of the inhabitants. That population must 
indeed be virtuous which can be kept in order by one 
solitary " Bobby." He is an admirable person — indeed 
quite a superior person — estimable as a man, inesti- 
mable as a policeman. If you would hear more about 
him, know that he is a thick-set, sinewy, right-honest- 
looking fellow, hard as nails, with hair the color of the 
red, red rose which sweetly blooms in June, cheeks like 
pulpit cushions, and — alas ! that I should say so — 
women's eyes. 

I don't object to women's eyes in women's heads ; by 
no means : there they are the right eyes in the right 
heads ; but I confess I do not like to see the starry orbs 
of the angelic sex beneath a male brow. In all other 
respects the policeman of Hayling is a delightful being, 
strong as a lion and intellectual as a lady. His uniform 
fits him as tightly as a suit of sticking-plaster. How he 
ever gets into it exceeds my comprehension, for he is 
full of habit, though by no means scant o' breath. But 
he looks beautiful in his coat of office, let me tell you ; 
and I believe there is not " a more desartless man to be 
constable " than he on the face of the habitable globe. 
You should see him tearing through a turnip field at the 
rate of five miles an hour on no business whatever, for 



254 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

it is inconceivable that he can have anything to do. A 
policeman without prisoners is like a doctor without 
patients ; and as nobody in Hayling ever does anything 
to warrant his or her being taken up, it stands to reason 
that the policeman can have nothing upon his hands 
except his gloves. There is no one to " run in," and 
even though there were, it would be out of the question 
for the policeman to treat him so, for there is nowhere 
to " run " him into unless it be the sea. Jails there are 
none in Hayling, and nobody is ever punished for any- 
thing. You are at perfect liberty to do or say what you 
please ; so the policeman, lucky wight ! has nothing to 
do, and is well paid for doing it. I had a pleasant chat 
with him yesterday evening. He assured me that the 
Haylingers are simply the most honorable people in the 
whole world. Touch their honor, touch their life. He 
illustrated the fact by an amusing story, the truthfulness 
of which he personally avouched. It seems that there 
are two chimney-sweeps in the island : the one in the 
north parish, the other in the south. They have their 
professional jealousies, but otherwise they were good 
friends enough until one day last week, when Jim the 
Northern accused Bill the Southern of having stolen his 
knife. Bill's rage and indignation knew no bounds. A 
perfect hive of capital " B's " came swarming from his 
lips. His language was vascular and imprecatory in the 
extreme. He had not stolen the knife ; not he ; he 
would scorn the action. " Look here, Jim," he said, in 
an ecstasy of virtuous wrath, " I never see'd your knife 
in my born days ; I never knowed you had a knife." 
And so saying he went on "to unsphere the stars with 
swearing. He swore like any trooper, heaped oath upon 
oath, and wound up by invoking upon his eyes and other 



AN ISLAND OF TRANQUIL DELIGHTS. 255 

portions of his person the most appalling curses if he 
had ever even beheld the knife, much more stolen it. 
Jim heard him out with patient attention and then quietly 
asked, " Will you say upon your honor, Bill ? " " Ah ! 
well," replied Bill, in tones of heroic resignation, "if 
you put it that way — there's the knife!" and as he spoke 
he drew the article solemnly out of his pocket and 
placed it in the hands of his brother sweep. " What do 
you think of that, sir ? " asked my friend .the policeman. 
" Ain't that touching ? Ain't we a honorable people ? 
Catch a London sweep behaving so ! He couldn't do 
it no how." 

Besides the policeman, there is at least one other 
local celebrity whose acquaintance the visitor will do 
well to make. I mean Mr. Evens, the ferryman, whose 
mission it is to row travellers in an open boat across the 
arm of the sea which sunders Hayling from Cumber- 
land Fort. Mr. Evens is an elderly and highly-respect- 
able person, with a face like a brick-bat. The color 
and expression of his countenance reminds you of the 
red lamp affixed at night to the last carriage of a rail- 
way train. He is a very nice man, but he is somewhat 
hard of hearing. Oh, 'eavens ! Evens ! how long I did 
keep shouting for you the other day before I could 
attract your attention. When you came at last you told 
me you had been "up the dock in search of coal," 
whereupon a pretty little Hayling girl in the boat 
laughed slily and winked at me. What she meant I 
know not — shall never know ; but upon my word of 
honor, Mr. Evens, she both laughed and winked. 
Moreover, she told me that she sometimes spends the 
best part of an hour in hailing you over the sea, where- 
upon a very bright boy, whose name I discovered — let 



256 ERRA TIC ESSA YS. 

posterity take note of it ! — to be Alfred Kuckky, ex- 
claimed, with a smile like a sunbeam, " I suppose that's 
the reason it is called Hayling Island." That boy will 
get on. I have already procured a commission for him 
from Mr. Arthur Swanborough to write the next bur- 
lesque for the Strand Theatre. 

Ah, me ! My paper is well nigh covered. My ink 
runs low. My candle flickers in the socket. My eyes 
grow dim. My head throbs painfully. I am very 
tired. Oh ! my friends and friendesses, you little know 
what I go through for your sake or how hard I work in 
your service. Hark ! What's that ? The clock as I 
live, chiming half-past one o'clock in the morning ! And 
here am I toiling away for the B.P. instead of taking 
mine ease in this Island of Tranquil Delights. Alas ! 
and a-well-a-day ! forgive the sins of these erratic essays 
and pity the afflicted being who pens them for your sake. 
Tranquil Delights, quotha ! Marry, come up ! Go to ! 
Tranquil Delights ! Where be they ? Not in the soul 
of the weekly essayist, wherever else they be. I am 
very, very tired. Oh ! for a week of sleep — sleep placid 
and profound — sleep balmy and delicious — sleep such 
as I knew when I was a boy and shall never know 
again ! But a truce to sad thoughts. The night wears 
on a-pace. The charming verses of Mr. Planche' fall 
upon my memory like delightful music. Oh, reader 
mine, lay them to heart : — 

" One word for the author whom often 

You've hailed as your holiday bard, 
There really is something to soften 

The heart of the critic most hard. 
The mind of the man who must measure 

The taste of the town as he writes, 
Is not quite a Palace of Pleasure 

In an Island of Tranquil Delights." 






WEDDINGS. 257 



WEDDINGS. 



A SI was sauntering through Northumberland Avenue 
last Thursday, and bethinking me of the strange 
remark of my friend, the O'Finnigan 0, that the removal 
of Northumberland House is " a great addition to Lon- 
don," who, think you, should knock up against me but 
Beebumble? The clock of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields — 
where be those fields now? — was chiming three, and 
Beebumble was running for his dear life to catch a train 
a few yards distant, which was not to start till a quarter 
to four. " Do take it easy, my dear friend," I expostu- 
lated, " and let us have a stroll together along the Em- 
bankment. You may take my word for it that you are 
long before your time." So we loafed off together, 
though not without much reluctance at first on his part, 
for he was in an agony of terror lest Mrs. Beebumble 
should be waiting for him at the station. I promised 
to accompany him to the train with strict punctuality, 
and to receive upon my own devoted head the vials of 
matrimonial wrath designed for him, in the event of Mrs. 
Beebumble "cutting up rusty," as he profanely phrased 
it. His alarm thereupon subsided, and after he had 
made me cry, as you know is his invariable habit, by the 
vice-like cordiality with which he wrenches my hand, we 
launched into conversation and had a cosy chat. Ob- 
serving that he looked even more unhappy than usual, 
I asked him what was the matter with him. A smile 
like a spasm broke bitterly over his face, as he replied 
that he had been at a wedding the day before, and had 
*7 



258 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

never since been able to get up his spirits. " A wed- 
ding," said I, " that is usually regarded as a joyous 
occasion." " It depends upon circumstances," rejoined 
my friend, " and circumstances alter cases, as the cat 
said when she jumped upon the printers' frames ; " and 
once more the comic spasm stole over his melancholy 
features. " The wedding has made you witty," quoth I, 
" and you are talking diamonds." " Alas ! alas ! " he 
answered, " my wit is of the dullest, for my heart is as 
heavy as lead. Ah, me ! how well I remember my own 
wedding. It was an awful affair ; yet this I will say, — 
Mrs. Beebumble looked magnificent in her bridal dress, 
that she did." " I can quite believe it. She looks 
magnificent to this day." "Ah!" he replied, with a 
sigh, " you would say so if you could see her in a pas- 
sion ; you only see her in repose ; she is beautiful in 
repose, but in a passion she is sublime. The battle of 
Waterloo was a Quakers' meeting compared to the row 
she kicks up when she is angry with me." " You are 
indeed a fortunate man," I rejoined. " Well," quoth he, 
" perhaps I am, for there is no denying that she is a 
monstrous fine woman." " There can be no question 
about it, Beebumble ; I should imagine that Mrs. Bee- 
bumble weighs sixteen stone, if she weighs an ounce." 
"Sixteen stone seven ounces, sir, by Read's weighing- 
machine, which she broke in being weighed at the Cam- 
den Road Station on Saturday last," said the little man, 
drawing himself up majestically ; " but between you and 
me, she leads me the life of a skinned eel on a red hot 
frying-pan, and I am mortally afraid of her." " Mrs. 
Beebumble is to be envied," I made answer ; " the 
woman who succeeds in making her husband afraid of 
her has good cause to be proud. She is an ornament to 



I 



WhDDINGS. 



2 59 



her sex." " That may be," returned Beebumble — and 
as he spoke, his voice sank to a whisper, and he looked 
timidly around, as though he feared to be overheard — 
"but she is a scourge to ours. Mrs. Beebumble is, 
indeed, as you say, a monstrous fine woman, but the 
thought of a wedding gives me the heart-quake. She 
won't catch me marrying her again in a hurry," and 
once more the spasm-like smile half-illumined, half- 
distorted his sorrowful face. We went on discoursing 
in this reckless, frivolous style, to the utter ruin of com- 
mon-sense, and the great delight of our enemies — could 
they but have heard us, which, thank Heaven ! they did 
not — till the sad hour for parting arrived. At the 
appointed moment I delivered him into the many-dim- 
pled hands of that armful of joy, Mrs. Beebumble. She 
rewarded me with a smile, of which, not wishing to 
speak hyperbolically, I will simply say that the sun was 
a fool to it. But somehow I can't help thinking that 
Beebumble " caught it," for not having been at Charing 
Cross an hour before the arrival of his fair Philistine, 
for as he leant out of the carriage window to wave me a 
last farewell while the train steamed asthmatically out 
of the station, he looked very miserable. Poor fellow ! 
Never since then have I been able to get matters 
matrimonial out of my head. By day and by night I 
still keep thinking of or dreaming about weddings. 
What wonderful things they are, to be sure, and how 
marvellous is the interest they inspire in women of all 
ranks and ages — maids, wives, and widows alike ! When 
a lady of any position in society is to be married, the 
female parishioners one and all seem to get wind of it 
by some mystical means beyond male apprehension, and 
on the morning of her wedding-day the church is found 



2 60 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

to be crammed from the communion-table to the porch, 
with a congregation in which there are probably twenty 
women for one man. What delight and curiosity, what 
impatience of delay, what eagerness of attention are 
depicted on every female countenance ! Their faces are 
alive with excitement. And all for what ? Can it be 
that the wives and widows renew in imagination the 
triumphs of the past, while the spinsters luxuriate in a 
fanciful foretaste of the glories which they fondly believe 
to be in store for themselves ? Or is the sex's pride of 
conquest at the bottom of all this brilliant emotion, and 
are the feelings of the lovely spectators, as they see one 
of their sisters walking victoriously down the aisle, while 
she leans upon the arm of her " groom," akin to those 
of the anglers who watch a brother of the gentle craft en- 
gaged in the act of " landing " his fish ? It is impossible 
to say, at least it is impossible for a man to say, though of 
course the ladies know all about it, and could enlighten 
us, if they pleased, but they don't. To the masculine 
mind — if creatures of the. sex masculine can be said to 
have a mind — the whole affair is an impenetrable mys- 
tery, and the man most hopelessly in the dark is prob- 
ably the bridegroom. In ninety-nine cases out of a 
hundred, he does not want to be trotted out as a raree- 
show ; he finds no pleasure in being gazed at by a thou- 
sand eyes, though those eyes be as bright as the stars 
of the firmament ; he cannot, for the life of him, make 
out what it is all about ; he fails to perceive what matter 
of interest it can be to all these people that he, whom 
they never saw before, and may never again see, thinks 
fit to take to wife a lady of whom they are equally igno- 
rant ; he grows as white as a sheet, and hardly knows 
whether he is standing upon his head or his heels ; he 



WEDDINGS. 2 6l 

is dragged an insensate victim at the chariot-wheels of 
fashion, and cannot help himself. When he has arrived 
at the matrimonial block, out marches the executioner, 
looking so solemn and starchy in his surplice, that what- 
ever faint vestige of courage may have survived in the 
bridegroom vanishes at the sight of him, and he gets so 
bewildered that he has scarcely voice enough left to 
give a faltering answer in the affirmative to the momen- 
tous question whether he will take for his wife the 
beautiful enchantress who has brought him to this pass. 
Meanwhile, glance at the bride ! How bright and blest 
she looks, how radiant and benign, how serenely happy 
and self-possessed ! To the Parson's inquiry whether 
she will accept the bridegroom for her husband, she 
replies, with calm confidence, in tones as clear as a silver 
bell, " I will ; " and she means it. Her courage is as 
great as her joy. She is as intrepid as lovely, and though 
she is the cynosure of all eyes, she never flinches. Her 
sweet composure, and tranquil, lady-like grace enhance 
beyond expression the charms of her beauty, and when 
the ceremony is over, she is still as " fresh as morning 
roses newly washed with dew," to quote the words of 
William the Divine. All this is very, very wonderful, 
and may well engage the speculations of philosophers 
to get at the true cause and meaning of it. Oh ! how I 
should like to be a bride. But I never shall be one : I 
begin* to despair. The newly-wedded couple, with their 
train attendant of gleeful relatives, and their fair pre- 
cursors, shedding flowers upon their path, having walked 
out of the church, amid the clashing of joy bells and the 
inspiriting strains of Mendelssohn's " Wedding March," 
played thunderingly upon the organ, repair to the house 
of the bride's parents, there to partake of an entertain- 



262 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

ment sumptuous as incomprehensible. This proceeding, 
however irrational, would appear to be of venerable 
antiquity, seeing that Ben Johnson, in one of his come- 
dies, enjoins the wedding guests, the wedding being over, 
to hie them to the father's dwelling, there to take part 
in the brilliant festivities : — 

" With the phant'sies of hey-troll 
Troll about the bridal bowl, 
And divide the broad bride-cake 
Round about the bride's stake." 

The cake in question, wherein, as some unamiable 
curmudgeons have been wont to assert, dwell all the 
sweets of matrimony, is one of these curious " institu- 
tions " which survive the lapse of time and the vicissi- 
tudes of fashion. Empires fall, crowns totter, dynasties 
decay, but the wedding-cake still maintains its ground. 
Its magical properties, however, are sadly on the wane, 
and the day is gone when people care to follow the 
example of the gentleman mentioned in the Spectator, 
who, " being resolved to try his fortune, and that he 
might be sure of dreaming pleasantly upon something 
at night, procured a handsome slice of bride-cake, which 
he placed very conveniently under his pillow." It is to 
be hoped that he left it there till morning, for his dreams 
would not have been of the pleasantest had he awaken- 
ed in the middle of the night and eaten it. Surgit semper, 
etc., and the demon of indigestion has masked himself 
ere now even in so fascinating a shape as " a handsome 
slice of bride-cake." The learned in material and moral 
analogies might find a theme for erudite inquiry even 
in this matter, and trace some manner of resemblance 
between the gorgeous piece of unwholesome confection- 



WEDDINGS. 263 

ery which makes one's lips water and one's stomach 
ache, and the delusive visions of those lovers who, as 
Mr. H. J. Byron wittily expresses it, are " spoons before 
marriage and knives and forks after." But everything 
about a wedding breakfast is contradictory and incon- 
sistent. It is a matter of course, and in fact quite de 
rigueur, that somebody must cry, though why or where- 
fore nobody could ever understand. There is but one 
thing better than keeping your daughter, and that is to 
give her away — not to throw her away, to be sure, but 
to give her away to an honest man ; and as every bride- 
groom is believed to be such a person until his villany 
is revealed, like that of other criminals, the occasion is, 
for the present at all events, one rather for smiles than 
tears. On the other hand, a vast deal of twaddle in 
the way of felicitation is undoubtedly spoken on these 
bridal occasions. The speeches at a wedding-breakfast 
usually begin where common sense ends. From all lips 
Come words of jocose congratulation, mingled with fervid 
aspirations for long life and happiness to the bride and 
bridegroom ; but inasmuch as long life is an event of 
very rare occurrence, and nobody ever yet was happy, 
these wishes, however friendly, are a trifle foolish. 
" Nothing," observes the wicked Lord Lyttelton, " is so 
absurd as the tide of felicitations which flows in upon a 
poor newly married man, before he himself can determine 
— and much less the complimenting world — upon the 
propriety of them. Marriage is the grand lottery of 
life, and it is as great a folly to exult upon entering into 
it as on the purchase of a ticket in the State Wheel of 
Fortune. It is when the ticket has drawn a prize that we 
can answer to congratulations." This is every bit as 
true of the bride as of the bridegroom, and there is a 



264 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

touch of grim agony in the thought that at the very 
time when the bridesmaids are scattering rosy smiles 
around, and the " funny man " at the table is cracking 
his vapid jokes, the heroine of the occasion may possibly 
be haunted by the suspicion that, after all, she has 
married the wrong man ; while he, poor wretch ! may 
not be without misgivings that he, too, has wedded the 
wrong woman. Matrimony is, as the old pun goes, too 
often a mere matter of money. An American essayist 
has defined it most ungallantly as originating in an in- 
sane desire on the part of a young man to pay for the 
board and lodging of a young woman. It sometimes 
happens, to be sure, that it is the young woman who 
pays for the board and lodging of the young man ; but, 
however that may be, this, at least, is certain, that a 
mariage de convenance gives little promise of felicity, and 
that the compliments and good-wishes of the wedding 
guests on such an occasion, however kindly meant and 
gracefully expressed, are the merest moonshine. It 
matters not how rich the bride-cake may be, or how 
beautiful the trousseau, or how large the dowry, or how 
sumptuous the breakfast, or how numerous the old slip- 
pers, or how thick the shower of rice wherewith the 
newly-wedded couple may be pelted into their carriage, a 
wedding is a sham, and there is not the faintest chance of 
comfort in the marriage state, unless the bride, standing 
defiantly upon the rights of her sex, have made up her 
mind that man and wife are one, and that one is the 
Wife. 



THE DELIGHT OF EARL Y RISING. 265 



THE DELIGHT OF EARLY RISING. 

HPHERE is one way, and one only, of enjoying life, 
and that is to rise early. " Dilliculo surgere salu- 
berrimum est" says the classic proverb, and no truer 
words were ever either written or uttered. All good 
and wise men are of accord in denouncing the absurd- 
ity, not to say the sinfulness, of lying late in bed. " I 
would have inscribed on the curtains of your bed and 
the walls of your chamber — if you do not rise early, 
you can make progress in nothing. If you do not set 
apart your hours of reading, if you suffer yourself, or 
any one else, to break in upon them, your days will slip 
through your hands unprofitable and frivolous, and un- 
enjoyed by yourself." So spake the great Lord Chat- 
ham. " The difference," says Dr. Doddridge, " between 
rising at five and seven o'clock in the morning for the 
space of forty years, supposing a man to go to bed at 
the same hour at night, is nearly equivalent to the ad- 
dition of ten years to a man's life." In the year 1784, 
Dr. Franklin published an ingenious essay on the ad- 
vantages of early rising as a mere piece of economy. 
He estimated the saving that might be made in Paris 
alone by using sunshine instead of candles at ninety- 
six millions of French livres, or four millions sterling 
per annum. Dr. Todd is dogmatic and peremptory in 
inculcating the necessity of being up with the lark, or, 
if possible, before him. " Few," quoth he, " ever lived 
to a great age, and fewer still ever became distinguish- 
ed, who were not in the habit of early rising. You 



266 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

rise late, and of course commence your business at a 
late hour, and everything goes wrong all day." " He 
who rises late," remarks an old writer, " may trot all 
day, and not have overtaken his business at night." 
Dean Swift avers that he never knew any man come to 
greatness and eminence who lay abed of a morning. 
Boswell tells us that Lord Monboddo used to awake 
every morning at four, and then for his health walk in 
his room naked, with the window open, which he called 
taking an air-bath ; after which he would go to bed 
again and sleep two hours more. Johnson, who was 
always ready to beat down anything that seemed to be 
exhibited with disproportionate importance, observed, 
" I suppose, sir, there is no more in it than this : he 
wakes at four and cannot sleep till he chills himself, 
and makes the warmth of the bed a grateful sensa- 
tion." This gruff commentary is worthy of the Bear of 
Bolt Court, who, unable to emulate the virtue of the 
Scottish peer, found a surly pleasure in depreciating it. 
In his more genial moments, when envy did not em- 
bitter his heart, nor prejudice warp his judgment, John- 
son would wax eloquent upon the benefits of early ris- 
ing, and deplore the degeneracy of his own nature 
which usually kept him in bed till two o'clock in the 
afternoon. 

Great as is the injury to a man's business from the 
habit of late rising, the detriment to his health and 
happiness from the same inglorious cause is still more 
grievous. The morning air out of doors is at no other 
period so pure, pungent and exhilarating as at day- 
break. It is a fact conclusively established by univer- 
sal observation, and physiologists have not failed to call 
attention to it, that the hair of an early riser defies the 



THE DELIGHT OF EARL Y RISING. 2 6f 

snow-storms of age, and retains its natural color to the 
last. When I mentioned this amazing circumstance the 
other day to my friend Penthorn, who never gets up 
before noon, what do you suppose was his reply? 
" That only bears out the old French proverb, ' La tete 
d'un fou ne blanchit jamais] which, translated into Eng- 
lish meaneth, ' A fool's head never grows grey.' " 
Now, bearing in mind that my hair is as brown as a 
berry, and that I am up at cock-crow every day of my 
life, I cannot help thinking that this remark of Pen- 
thorn's was uncalled for, to say the least of it. I will 
tell Mrs. Penthorn of it the next time I see her, and if 
she do not put Penthorn on a short allowance of kisses 
for a month to come I shall be indeed surprised. The 
man who is doomed to the ignoble bondage of bed 
at the very hour when nature is most glorious and glad- 
some, and when, bathed in brilliant sunshine, the world 
itself looks newly-made, is indeed an object for com- 
passion. I verily believe that Penthorn has never seen 
the sun rise, and that he will pass into Paradise with- 
out having once witnessed it. Yet what a sublime spec- 
tacle it is ! Crede experto. I saw it this very day from 
the middle of Hampstead Heath ; nor I alone, but my 
bull-dog as well, bless him ! — 

" Yes, 'tis no doubt a sight to see when breaks 
Bright Phoebus, while the mountains still are wet 
With mist, and every bird with him awakes, 
And Night is flung off, like a mourning suit 
Worn for a husband — or some other brute." 

Just so ! What can be more delightful than to sally 
forth, with a short pipe in your mouth and a bull-dog at 
your heels, for a long walk through a picturesque coun- 
try at daybreak on a summer's day ! How fresh and 



2 68 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

fragrant is the air ! How joyous is " the breezy call of 
incense-breathing morn ! " The sky is a luminous 
dome of azure, curtained with silver clouds, the foliage 
looks as green as an emerald, and the dewdrops sparkle 
like liquid diamonds upon every spray. You tread the 
earth with a light, elastic step, aromatizing the zephyrs 
as they sigh past you with the fumes of Bristol Bird's- 
eye. All this is pleasant enough, under ordinary cir- 
cumstances, but it is still more enjoyable if there have 
been a frost over-night, for then the landscape wins new 
charms from the state of the atmosphere, and the dry, 
bracing air qualifies you to enjoy them with the keen- 
est zest. The whole landscape is suffused in new-born 
light, and glitters with icicles, and nothing that the 
most poetic imagination can picture to itself of fanciful 
and effulgent can surpass the radiant reality of the 
beams dancing upon the crystallized rime with which 
trees and hedge-rows are begemmed : — 

" Falsely luxurious, will not man awake ; 
And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy 
The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour, 
To meditation due and sacred song ? 
For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise ? 
To lie in dead oblivion, losing half 
The fleeting moments of too short a life, 
Total extinction of the enlighten'd soul ! 
Or else to feverish vanity alive, 
Wilder'd and tossing through distemper'd dreams ? 
Who would in such a gloomy state remain 
Longer than nature craves, when every muse 
And every blooming pleasure waits without, 
To bless the wildly-devious morning walk ? " 

So sings the Poet of the Seasons. But if the morning 
walk is so delightful, what shall be said in praise of the 



THE DELIGHT OF EARLY RISING. 269 

morning ride ? To spring out of your bed into your 
bath, and thence into your saddle (as is the invariable 
practice of that king of good fellows, my friend Dick 
Belward) for a gallop royal over the crisp breezy downs, 
or along the yellow sands of the sea which foams and 
flashes in the orient light, is to partake of one of the 
manliest, noblest enjoyments of which human nature is 
capable. The people who may see you tearing away in 
this wild fashion will probably conclude that you are out 
of your mind, and the beauty of it is they will not be far 
wrong ; but what of that ? Surely you have a right to be 
happy after your own lunatic fashion. 

It is a common error to suppose that to enjoy the 
pleasures and advantages incidental to early rising you 
must of necessity live in the country. No such thing. 
Those pleasures and advantages are within the reach of 
Londoners as well, though, of course, under circumstan- 
ces altogether unlike those with which country folk are 
familiar. A stroll through the streets of London, or along 
the Thames Embankment, at daybreak, is suggestive of 
" thoughts that do lie too deep for words." The silence 
of the myriad-tongued city is singularly impressive. So 
also is its solitude. There is no one about but the drowsy 
policemen, the workmen trudging to the scenes of their 
daily toil, or the votaries of pleasure fulfilling their 
bacchanalian resolve not to go home till morning — till 
daylight does appear. But even these apparitions are 
of but rare occurrence. You may roam through many 
streets without meeting a human being. The architec- 
ture stands out in clear bold relief against the cold 
cloudless sky, and it is wonderful to observe how much 
taller the houses look at dawn than at noontide. They 
seem to gain in height, owing to the absence of way- 



270 



ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 



farers, the average standard of human stature. All this, 
and many things besides, are curious and interesting to 
observe. In the depth of winter, when the east wind 
is blowing razors, and the cold, clammy fog is so dense 
that it might be kicked, as well, indeed, it deserves to 
be, you will do essential service to your health by leav- 
ing your cosy, warm bed at daybreak, and strolling 
pensively along the banks of the Regent's Canal, or 
through the lanes and alleys of the Isle of Dogs. Even 
though you should renounce such al fresco delights, 
tempting though they be, you will still find ample re- 
ward for the trouble of turning out of the blankets at 
dawn in mooning from one room to another of your 
house — they all look so bright, cheerful and tidy in the 
dim twilight, before the housemaids are astir. But 
these, and all kindred joys, are lost to the sluggard — 
pitiful drone ! For my own part, I have not quite 
made up my mind whether I would call that man 
" friend " who is not out and about at 5 o'clock in the 
summer or 6 in winter. I hardly think I should do so, 
unless he were very rich, and had remembered me hand- 
somely in his will. To conclude, you may (if you like) 
take my word for it, that of all habits, that of early 
rising is the most sensible and salubrious, for sleep is 
mere waste of time, and nothing in bed becomes us like 
the leaving it. 



THE REIGN OF RAIN. 2 J I 



THE REIGN OF RAIN. 

T T may be said of Rain as truly as of Fire, that it is a 
good servant, but a bad master. For some weeks 
past we have been under its relentless dominion, with 
a result to ourselves anything rather than agreeable. 
What we especially resent and feel to be a peculiar 
hardship, is the wretched monotony of such a condition 
of climate as has of late prevailed. When heavy rain 
is accompanied by high winds, the effect, if not com- 
fortable, is at least picturesque. Nature in a passion is, 
under all circumstances, a magnificent spectacle. No 
man, not hopelessly insensible to the charms of the 
sublime and beautiful, can view without admiration the 
grand disarray of the ocean when wind and wave are in 
desperate conflict, the rack of rain-charged clouds in a 
tempestuous sky, the impetuous torrent of a mountain 
stream, or the writhing of giant trees in the grasp of the 
winter blast. These are splendid sights, only to be 
surpassed by the matchless exhibition of a lady angry 
with her husband. Storms of all descriptions are 
delightful to hear and to behold. It is fine to listen 
to the thunder rolling, finer still to see the lightning 
flashing, the very sense of danger giving greater zest 
to enjoyment. The rattling of hail-stones upon the 
roof of a green house is melodious to a refined ear ; so, 
too, is the rustling of autumnal breezes through a forest ; 
so, likewise is the clamor of a loving tongue when you 
come home late at night. The toppling of a chimney- 
pot about your head speaks eloquently of atmospheric 



272 



ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 



disturbance, and has an enchanting sound. There are 
few things lovelier to gaze upon than a snow-storm, 
more particularly in a desolate landscape, say, for ex- 
ample, upon Salisbury Plain ; and the general pictur- 
esqueness of the scene is incalculably enhanced by the 
presence of a sweep or a Methodist parson right in the 
middle of the vast expanse, the dark costume of either 
gentleman telling against the dazzling whiteness all 
round with an exquisite contrast of color. In these 
and all kindred spectacles there is a certain dramatic 
sentiment which makes us oblivious of personal dis- 
comfort, in our ardent recognition of the appeal to our 
poetic sympathies. But there is nothing either dramatic 
or picturesque, nothing either to interest or excite us, in 
one unvarying down-pour of rain, falling morning, noon, 
and night for weeks together, out of leaden skies, upon the 
soddened earth below. Not a zephyr blows : not a leaf 
stirs : not a cloud is to be seen : the brave over-hanging 
firmament is a dome of brown vapors : and down comes 
the rain, the weary, dreary rain, in a dismal deluge, blot- 
ting and blearing everything, and destroying all distinc- 
tion between flood and field. The effect upon the spirits 
is little less than heart-breaking. The only comfort is 
to know that the most inveterate of grumblers can no 
longer assert that the weather in England is " unset- 
tled." Settled indeed it is, with a vengeance; and 
unless it soon mend, it will " settle " us as well. 

The poets have much to answer for in having be- 
stowed such panegyrics upon Rain. It is all very well 
for Shakespeare to sing the praises of Mercy, which 
droppeth like the gentle rain from Heaven upon the 
place beneath, but Mercy coming in inundations com- 
parable to the torrents with which we have been of late 



THE REIGN OF RAIN. 



273 



afflicted would be a very questionable favor. Milton 
talks of ladies whose eyes "rain influence/' but that 
"influence" must be somewhat perilous which bears 
resemblance to the rain of the present summer. Spencer 
in his "Fate of the Butterflies," envies Jupiter his 
prerogatives as " Pluvius," and seems to think that to 
" rain in th' aire " is indeed a celestial privilege : — 

" What more felicitie can fall to creature 
Than to enjoy delight with libertie, 
And to be Lord of all the Workes of Nature ; 
To rain in th' aire from earth to lightest skie, 
To feed on flowers and weeds of glorious feature ? " 

" Delight with libertie " were indeed an enviable lot, 
but what chance of " libertie " have we under the 
reign of Rain ? Mr. Abraham Cowley was not without 
warrant for his melodious utterances, when he declared 
that, 

" The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, 
And drinks, and gapes for drink again ; 
The plants suck in the earth, and are 
With constant drinking fresh and fair." 

The verse is charming, and the Bacchanalian inference 
is not to be resisted, but beyond that point the analogy 
may not be carried. Man is not a hollyhock, nor is 
woman a geranium, and neither the one nor the other 
is any the better for the drenching rains that give beauty 
and brightness to either flower. A hollyhock need not 
fear rheumatism; and geraniums, not having noses, do 
not catch cold in them, as is the unhappy habit of 
human beings. When sunshine has succeeded shower, 
a garden looks all the gladder for copious rains ; but to 
tell me that a street has a happier expression while 
18 



274 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

being deluged with rain for days, or it may be weeks 
together, is to affront my understanding. The premon- 
itory symptoms of rain are dolorous in the extreme, 
and foretell all too truly the discomfort that is ap- 
proaching : — 

" Careful observers may foretell the hour 
(By sure prognostics) when to dread a shower ; 
While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er 
Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more. 
If you be wise, then go not far to dine, 
You'll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine ; 
A coming shower your shooting corns presage, 
Old aches will throb, your hollow tooth will rage." 

Of the truth of these reflections we Londoners have had 
ample experience during the present month. As for 
London herself — " Imperial Augusta," as she was wont 
to be designated — what could be more miserable, what 
more rueful and disconsolate than her general aspect 
and expression ? Look where we might, we saw objects 
equally provocative of pity and ridicule. It makes one's 
heart bleed to think of the policemen. Those hard 
helmets of theirs look like inverted colanders, and their 
" skimpy " little capes seem fashioned for the express 
purpose of conducting the rain in copious rivulets over 
their dear knees and down the whole length of their 
delightful legs. Why are not the " Bobbies " permitted 
to wear " Ulsters," or why are they not decked out in 
long-skirted dressing-gowns? Soaking with rain, as 
they are, how should these noble fellows be in a fitting 
condition to carry on the war with itinerant " costers," 
or to punch the heads of the public ? To require such 
achievements from men drenched to the skin, and shiv- 
ering all over like dogs in wet sacks, were to over-tax 
the mettle of the most heroic natures. The omnibus 



THE REIGN OF RAIN. 



275 



conductors are in still more piteous plight, for whereas 
the " Peeler " may stand up for a while under a doorway, 
or dive on the sly down an area or into a pot-house, the 
conductor has no such resource. Mounted upon his 
monkey-board, and often miserably clad, he must abide 
as best as he may the pelting of the rain, and need not 
hope for one shred of shelter. His case is all the more 
dreadful to think of, that there is really no intelligible 
reason why he should be exposed to any such hardship. 
No rational cause has ever yet been assigned, or is, in- 
deed capable of assignation, why the London conduc- 
tors should not, like their colleagues of the Continental 
and American cities, be provided with a canopy of some 
sort to protect them from the weather. When dogs 
shall have been furnished with an adequate number of 
hospitals and asylums, and when cats shall have been 
supplied with " homes " of sufficient luxury, it will per- 
haps occur to the benevolent to bestow a thought upon 
their fellow-creatures — the martyrs of the omnibuses 
and tram-cars. Very woeful and full to overflowing 
with sorrow and solicitude is the destiny of the London 
postman, who, wearing a cape still " skimpier " than 
that of the policeman, has to trudge through the streets 
all day long till 10 o'clock at night, amid torrents of 
rain, distributing as he goes letters well-nigh as humid 
as himself. He is in the main a civil, well-conducted 
fellow, and deserves greater consideration than is usually 
shown to him. But these are not the only sufferers 
during the reign of rain. All classes of citizens suffer, 
though of course in various ways and different degrees. 
The visitation falls, as usual, with bitterest pressure 
upon the poor, whose scanty raiment affords but inade- 
quate defence against the inclemency of a British sum- 



276 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

mer. They get wetted through and through, and having 
no change of clothes, fall easy victims to the catarrh 
and other maladies that come in the train of hard 
weather. Then, again, how sad it is to think what in- 
nocent schemes of enjoyment are frustrated, and what 
pleasant projects of holiday-making in the country lose 
the name of action ! It is a sight to bring a cloud upon 
the sunniest brow to see the rain pouring down in sheets 
and tons of water upon the little children in the parish 
vans, who for weeks past had thought all day and 
dreamt all night about a merry " outing" in Epping For- 
est, at Rye House, or on Buckhurst Hill, and whose 
noses are as blue as indigo, and whose teeth chatter in 
their heads even while they proclaim, amid diluvian 
drenchings, their heroic determination not to go home till 
morning. The " Upper Ten " partake the disasters of the 
million, for the glories of " Vanity Fair " have vanished 
from Rotten Row, and the splendor of the Park is 
washed out. Never more this season will the Four- in- 
Hand Club display their magnificent equipages to the 
admiration of a dazzled populace ; nor, if this sort of 
thing goes on, is it to be expected that the Butterfly 
coaches to Brighton, High Wycombe, Seven Oaks, and 
other delightful localities, will be left much longer upon 
the road. It is no joke to send a splendid vehicle, a 
team of spanking " bloods," and a coachman and guard 
in dainty liveries from the White Horse Cellars in Picca- 
dilly, on a journey of some forty or fifty miles, with no 
happier result than to find coach, horses, and men all 
soddened with rain and bespattered with mud. Look 
where we may, we see failure, disappointment, and vex- 
ation of spirit. The Eton and Harrow match came to 
grief at Lords ; the " summer manoeuvres," as they are 



THE REIGN OF RAIN. 



277 



styled with grim pleasantry, will probably eventuate in 
rheumatism to all concerned ; Wimbledon Common has 
been converted into a swamp, and picnics and floral 
fetes, and garden parties of all kinds have but served 
to illustrate in their downfall the absurdity of human 
anticipations and the vanity of human desires. " Such 
is life, which is the end of all things ! " as Mrs. Brown 
beautifully remarks. Unless matters meteorological 
mend, and that speedily, still graver calamities are in 
store. What is to become of the excursion season, and 
whither is that large section of the over-worked London 
public to turn for comfort, who have heretofore been 
accustomed to have recourse for the recruiting of their 
health and spirits to trips down the river or to the sea- 
side ? A more pitiable sight can hardly be imagined 
than that now presented by the Thames steamers on 
their rainy way to Gravesend, Southend, and Sheerness. 
Alas, for North Woolwich ! Alas, for Erith Gardens ! 
Alas, and a-well-a-day for Rosherville, the place to spend 
a happy day ! As for Ramsgate, Margate, and Broad- 
stairs, the sooner their respective inhabitants throw up 
the sponges which they so closely resemble, the better 
for the Cockneys, who have enough to put up with 
without being befooled as well as deluged. 

The sights one is doomed to witness in the streets of 
London during the Reign of Rain are derogatory to the 
dignity of human nature. It is no uncommon thing to 
see people of the humbler sort going about in tarpau- 
lins, coal-sacks, horse-clothes, or blankets, " in the 
alarm of fear caught up." I protest that no longer ago 
than Wednesday last I saw a man in Bishopsgate 
Street with a blanket swathed around him, and I will 
do him the justice to say that Caesar could not have 



278 , ERRATIC ESSAYS. 

worn his toga with a finer air of grace and grandeur. 
Still, one does not like to see men going about in 
blankets, however elegantly they may be worn. A still 
more harrowing spectacle was to be viewed in the 
Strand on Tuesday, where — while it was raining, cats 
and dogs, and here and there a rat — I actually saw an 
ironmonger's porter with an inverted coal-scuttle upon 
his head. Fancy man, born for immortality, going 
about the Strand with a coal-scuttle upon " the dome 
of thought, the palace of the soul ! " Then, again, how 
sad — how very sad — it is to see human bodies clad in 
those clammy, glistening mackintoshes, which make a 
man look like a turbot ! I always expect to find fins 
and scales growing upon a man thus piscatorially ap- 
parelled. But the most agonizing sight of all is to see 
a cabman with two hats on. This is a practice which 
ought to be put down by the strong arm of the law. 
How should any man dare to wear two hats in a civil- 
ized country ? No one should be permitted to sport 
two hats unless a man with two heads. Suppose every- 
body were to put two hats on, what a nation of lunatics 
we should be accounted ! A law should be passed with- 
out an hour's delay to disentitle a cabman wearing 
more than one hat to recover his fare under any cir- 
cumstances whatsoever. 

When I was a very small boy, no bigger than a decan- 
ter, it was customary for little children to sing this song 
in rainy weather, — " Rain ! rain ! go to Spain, and 
never come to us again ! " The latter part of this sup- 
plication should be omitted, for the world may not do 
without rain ; but the former ought now to be in com- 
mon use from John o'Groat's to Land's End. Let us 
hope that brighter days are coming, and that, for the 
present, at all events, it is all over with the Reign of Rain. 



THE LONDON ROW. 



THE LONDON ROW. 



279 



/^\N returning to town after a brief sojourn in some 
^" > ^ sequestered spot far from the maddening crowd, 
nothing strikes you more forcibly than the contrast be- 
tween the tranquillity of the country and the pother of 
London. If you are, unluckily for yourself and your 
friends, of a poetic temperament and prone to the folly ' 
of writing original verse or parodying that of other peo- 
ple, it is ten to one that as you stroll from Charing 
Cross to Fenchurch Street you will pause pensively 
every now and then, and, striking an attitude at a 
crossing, burst forth into some such utterance a s this— 

" What are the wild wheels saying, 

Rumbling the streets along, 
All my fine feelings flaying 

With their uproarious song ? " 

The row in the streets is something appalling, and 
the most exasperating thought about it is that it might 
be in a great measure prevented, or at all events as- 
suaged, if we would but set about the task in a resolute 
manner. But we won't. Fully one-half the noises of 
London might be hushed ; and it is not in words to ex- 
press how much more comfortable and enjoyable our 
lives would be made in consequence. It is dreadful to 
think what we suffer in the course of the year by reason 
of the granite pavement alone. We had need to be 
made of the like material to endure it with impunity. 
The wear and tear of " tissue," as physiologists call it, 
to us who have hourly experience of its thundering row 



280 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

and its terrific jolting, must be as injurious to healtn as 
it is ruinous to peace. It splits our ears, it shakes our 
bones in their sockets and our teeth in our heads, it 
shatters our nervous systems, and it plays the mischief 
with what sentimental novelists delight to call " the 
noblest feelings of our nature." As for conversation, in 
the civilized sense of the word, it is out of the question 
when you walk through a street paved with granite. 
You must bellow like Stentor if you would shout down 
the combined clatter of omnibuses, cabs, and vans, in 
what Mr. Tennyson too truly describes as "roaring 
Temple Bar." John Gay, apostrophizing London by 
the fanciful title of " Augusta," one hundred years ago, 
makes pointed allusion to the roughness and noisiness 
of her thoroughfares — 

" To pave thy streets and smooth thy broken \yays, 
Earth from her womb a flinty tribute pays, 
For thee the sturdy paver thumps the ground, 
Whilst every stroke his lab'ring lungs resound." 

During the century that has elapsed since the penning 
of those lines very little has been done to tranquillize 
the great metropolis. True, a few streets have been 
asphalted and a fewer still have been paved with wood ; 
but stone is still the main material of pavement, and still 
as of yore the dismal " Ogh ! " of the sturdy paver wield- 
ing his ponderous hammer — an implement that would 
have disgraced the middle ages — shocks our ears. 
Walking one Friday evening not long ago through the 
Strand, on my way from Trafalgar Square to Farring- 
don Street, I was bothered, bewildered, and distracted 
by such a conflict of inharmonious noises as has prob- 
ably never been found upon earth elsewhere than in 
London since the building of the Tower of Babel. Some 



THE L ONDON ROW. 28 T 

maniac who died years ago — alas ! that he should have 
ever lived — left a leg of mutton and trimmings (so the 
Cockneys are led to believe) to ensure the ringing of 
the bells of the Church of St. Martin-in-the-nelds at a 
stated hour every Friday evening till the last syllable of 
recorded time. The bells were, accordingly, swinging 
uproarious from the church tower as I set out from 
Morley's Hotel ; and what a fearful row they made to 
be sure ! At the Lowther Arcade a wretched woman 
was grinding a barrel-organ for the torture, not only of 
the passers-by, but still more for that of her own child, a 
poor little animal about two years old, every nerve and 
fibre of whose tiny frame must have vibrated, and whose 
brain must have been well-nigh convulsed by the discord 
emitted from the instrument upon which it lay, poor 
infant, as upon a bed. At the corner of Agar Street a 
fellow was playing upon that newest engine of agony, 
the Mitrailleuse-Piano ; in front of the Adelphi Theatre, 
three men standing in a row, were blowing brazen horns 
of some sort, wherewith they made the hoarsest, most 
discordant noise imaginable • near Somerset House, but 
on the opposite side of the road, a girl was playing on 
the cornopean ; a few yards further on a fellow was 
filing a saw ; in Essex Street there was a Punch-and- 
Judy show ; and all this while countless vehicles were 
rumbling uproariously over the granite pavement. Why, 
it was enough to drive the Devil mad ! " Coaches roll, 
carts shake the ground, and all the streets with passing 
cries resound." Have you ever stood upon the Holborn 
Viaduct hard by Dr. Parker his Temple of an afternoon ? 
If not, don't. What with the roar of cab and ■ bus ; the 
heavy artillery of Pickford's and Railway vans, the 
vibration of the bridge ; the tantalizing expression of 



282 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

the figure of " Commerce," with her hands full of coins 
which you may not touch ; and the ridiculous proceed- 
ing of Prince Albert in taking off his hat to the Viaduct 
as if it were a lady ; there is at that particular place 
such a combination of horrors as you had better not 
encounter if you have any regard for your bodily health 
or your peace of mind. Nor do matters mend if you 
strike out of the great city arteries into the tributaries. 
In the City Road, the New North Road, and the whole 
route from Westminster to Brixton the bells of the tram- 
cars aggravate the noise-nuisance to an intolerable degree, 
to say nothing of the injury which the cars in question 
do to the roads, and to the " traps " of various kinds 
other than tram-cars plying thereon. You fly for refuge 
to the Railways — out of the frying-pan into the fire ! 
The shriek of the locomotive runs through your spine 
like a knife ; and the row the railway porters make in 
slamming the doors of the carriages is simply inhuman. 
The line being blocked, we came to a stand-still for a 
few minutes one day at a station on the Underground 
Railway. " Sir," said I, with a suavity all my own, to one 
of the porters, a gentleman in corduroy, who had shut 
the door with even more than ordinary fury, " I wish 
you would do your spiriting a little more gently. You 
frighten the life out of me. You might shut the door 
quite as effectually with half that noise." " Oh ! my 
eye and my elbow ! " replied that haughty young porter. 
" Sir," said I, with unruffled dignity, " I made no re- 
ference either to your eye or your elbow; though I 
should be well pleased if the former were more vigilant 
and the latter less vigorous ; but permit me to assure 
you that you are more noisy than the occasion warrants. 
Why not imitate the motion of the spheres ? " "I know 



THE LONDON ROW. 283 

nothing about them," he rejoined. " Have you ever 
read Bacon's Natural Philosophy ? " I ventured to in- 
quire. No ! not he. He had never heard of it. " Well, 
then," quoth I, " allow me to inform you of what Lord 
Bacon says on the subject of a placid demeanor: 
1 Great motions in nature pass without sound or noise. 
The heavens turn about in a most rapid motion without 
noise, to us perceived ; though in some dreams they 
have been said to make an excellent music' Now, my 
young friend, do let me implore you to emulate the gentle 
and melodious example of nature, and to shut the doors 
quietly for the future." What do you suppose was his 
answer ? " Go ! put your head in a bag ! " Yes, that 
was what the haughty young porter made answer. I was 
very angry ; and threatened to report him ; but on 
second thoughts I won't. Instead of reporting him I 
will take his advice. " Fas est et ab hoste doceri" The 
next time I travel from Moorgate Street to Edgware 
Road by rail, I will put my head in a bag, and I dare 
say I shall not suffer half so severely from the shrieking 
of the engine or the slamming of the door. The experi- 
ment is at all events worth making • and in the interest 
of humanity I will make it. 

Many of the noises which were wont to invade the 
repose of our forefathers have vanished, only, however, 
to be succeeded in some cases by others of a more clam- 
orous character. The guardians of the night no longer 
cry out the hour. If you were to ask a Bobby to sing 
forth the time o' night under your window he would 
probably regard you as a lunatic, and treat you accord- 
ingly. Anyhow he would not do it unless you were to 
make it well worth his while to comply with your re- 
quest. Most of the time-honored London cries have 



284 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

disappeared never to return but in their places we have 
noises most fcTzmusical, most melancholy. In summer 
time we have the caterwauling of " Ornaments for your 
fire-screen ! " and in winter the woeful wail of Irishmen 
tearfully exclaiming " Oranges ! — Orange / " than 
which a more execrable noise never fell upon the human 
tympanum. The ballad-singers have all but departed, 
but we are little the better for their departure, as in their 
room come hordes of so-called " musicians," whose bla- 
tant row is equally fatal to business and enjoyment. 
The man who could derive satisfaction from the grinding 
of an organ or the performances of a street band must 
know as much of music as a cow knows of playing a 
piano, and would probably derive pleasure from the 
passing of his wet fingers over a pane of glass, or the 
rolling of a wheel upon a dry axle, or the turning of a 
door upon a rusty hinge. Our fathers were free from 
the fell persecution of street music, but we are happily 
exempt from what must have been a bitter annoyance to 
them, the swinging to and fro of the sign-boards in 
front of the shops, a clamor which used to be regarded 
as an omen of ill weather — 

" But when the swinging signs your ears offend 
With creaking noise, then rainy floods impend, 
Soon shall the kennel swell with rapid streams 
And rush in muddy torrents to the Thames." 

How dreadful must that noise of swinging signs have 
been on stormy nights in mid-winter, more particularly 
in cases where the shop-keeper had neglected to keep 
the sign well oiled. It turns one's teeth of an edge to 
think of it. But, " th' inaudible and noiseless foot of 
Time," as Will Shakespeare happily phrases it, has kick- 



THE LONDON ROW. 285 

ed both the signboards of tradesmen and the snoring- 
boxes of watchmen into the waters of Lethe, and there 
is little now left to disturb the dreams of slumbering 
Cockneys, unless it be the mad career of the fire-engines 
tearing along the street at a furious pace, the white 
horses galloping for their dear lives, and the firemen in 
their brazen helmets shouting to the passengers to 
clear the way; a wild uproarious spectacle, yet not 
without a dash of the picturesque. 

But if we are rather more peaceful than our sires by 
night, we are in no better case, but rather in much worse 
by day, the traffic in the streets being now much greater 
and far more sonorous than in their time. To say no 
more about stone pavement or street-music, it is really 
shocking to think how much noise there is that might be 
prevented. Why will the London boys keep everlasting- 
ly whistling ? There is no city in the world where the 
boys in the street whistle so loudly and so badly as 
London. I wish they wouldn't. If they only knew 
what annoyance they cause me, I am sure they wouldn't. 
They are eternally at it, and it is not one boy in a hun- 
dred that has an ear or a lip for whistling. And the 
worst of it is that they all have a run upon the same 
tune, so that for weeks together, one hears nothing else 
but a barbarous outrage upon the one air — the song of 
the ' Gens d'armes ' in Genevieve de Brabant, or the 
1 Marsellaise,' or the ' Conspirators' Chorus,' etc., as the 
case may be. Again I say — and let it be conclusive of 
the matter — I wish they wouldn't. People who deal in 
the liquor that passes for " milk " should learn how to 
pronounce the word if they won't sell the thing ; and the 
vendors of cat's-meat, who now shout out something that 
makes human beings shudder, however it may please 



2 86 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

the cats, should be made to mend their speech, and not 
emulate the midnight utterances of the animals to whose 
appetites they administer. In gentlemen's houses, con- 
ducted as they should be, and in West-end clubs of the 
first class, the servants tread noiselessly as though they 
were walking upon velvet, and do your behests most 
peacefully, but in private houses of inferior " ton," and 
in the generality of taverns and coffee houses, the ser- 
vants knock about the china and glass as though they 
were skittles, and appear to think that work is insepa- 
rable from row. Nor is it domestics only who offend 
against the peace which should prevail in good society* 
What can be more unbecoming than the strife of tongues 
at a dinner table, as though each guest were seeking to 
talk down the other. Table-talk should run in a bright, 
smooth, silvery current, not in a foaming, boisterous tide. 
Then, again, there are people who, whether in public or 
in private, appear to regard their noses as trumpets, and 
play upon them accordingly. This is intolerable. How 
dare any man to pull out his pocket-handkerchief like 
a banner, and use it with such uproar that I start af- 
frighted from my seat, and fancy that Prince Bismarck 
has landed with an invading army, and is summoning 
me to surrender ? How dare any man, I repeat, thus 
to terrify and torture me ? I was reading a day or two 
ago in the British Museum. You might have heard a 
feather drop, so profound was the silence, when sudden 
ly the man next me played a solo upon his nose, which 
rang through the dome for all the world like the flourish 
of a bugle. " Sir," said I to the performer, "you appear 
to be a military man. Is that the ' Assembly ? ' Or is 
it the 'Retreat ? ' What are we to do ? " " Thunder 
and turf, sir," quoth he " I suppose a man may blow his 



THE LONDON ROW. 287 

nose without asking your permission." " Of a certain- 
ty," I replied, " but no one has a right to make his nose 
an instrument of torture to his fellow-creatures." He 
seemed to be of a different opinion, so there the conver- 
sation dropped, for I hate to argue with any man. Only 
I thought to myself how very wise those Spanish inn- 
keepers were who in the olden time used to make 
" ruido " an item in their bills, charging their guests for 
the noise they made. How welcome, how blessedly 
welcome is night when, to quote the words of a sublime 
poet, 

" Silence like a poultice comes 
To heal the wounds of sound." 

Revolving the matter in the innermost recesses of my 
mind, and bringing to the consideration of it all the 
thought and research at my command, I have arrived at 
the conclusion that mothers are answerable for not a 
little of the unnecessary noises which so fatally disturb 
the repose and impair the dignity of human life. Long 
before a child reaches that mysterious age when it be- 
gins to "take notice," it is supplied with artificial and 
altogether superfluous appliances for kicking up a row. 
It has first a rattle, then a squeaking little trumpet, then 
a drum, as though to teach it from the earliest dawn of 
life that the end and aim of human existence is the 
making a noise in the world. " I have seen a monkey," 
says Dean Swift, " overthrow all the dishes and plates 
in a kitchen, merely for the pleasure of seeing them 
tumble, and hearing the clatter they made in their fall." 
That is all well enough for a monkey ; but, surely, man 
born of woman should know better. I protest that if I 
were a mother I would as soon think of giving my baby 
a loaded revolver as a coral and bells. When the streets 



288 ERRA TIC ESS A VS. 

are paved with wood, when no other than anthracite coal, 
consuming its own smoke, is burnt in the grates, when 
nose-trumpets are forbidden by law, when whistling boys 
are birched, when the Thames is embanked with silent 
highways from Chelsea to Millwall, and from Battersea 
to Greenwich, and when mothers perceive the wisdom 
of inculcating in their offspring the grand lesson of 
making as little noise as they possibly can in the course 
of their earthly career, then, and not till then, will the 
London Row disappear, and London become a pleasant 
place to live in. 



POST YULE-TIDE MEDITATIONS, 

\ \ 7"ELL, Christmas is over ; the year is no longer 
very new ; the yule-log is fairly burnt out ; the 
sounds of festivity have died away ; we are tossed no more 
upon a sea of revelry ; we have got at last into quiet 
waters. It is a pleasant thought. Christmas comes 
but once a year ; and " a good job too." Life is at 
best a sad experiment, clouded with care and full of 
trouble, even under the most favorable conditions of for- 
tune ; but only fancy what it would be if Christmas were 
to come once a week ! To live in a perpetual whirl of 
dissipation ; to be doomed to the perennial consumption 
of roast turkeys and plum pudding ; to be compelled 
all the year round to eat and drink three times as 
much as is good for you ; to be trotted out from one 
theatre to another ; to wear a cast-iron smile, it matters 
not what sorrow may be rankling at your heart ; to kiss 



POST YULE-TIDE MEDITATIONS. 289 

and be kissed everlastingly under the mistletoe ; and to 
have to wish everybody you meet " the compliments of 
the season," whatever on earth that may mean, to have to 
do and suffer all these and many other things of kindred 
absurdity without intermission, from one end of the year 
to the other, were such a destiny that life would not be 
worth having upon the terms. It maddens one to think 
of it. It is as though a man should be married anew 
regularly every morning. For my own poor part I would 
rather be Othello's toad, living upon the vapor of a dun- 
geon, where at all events there is peace, than a man 
dwelling in perpetual commotion under a Yule-tide, 
which, like the great Pontic sea, should know no retiring 
ebb. Indeed, dear reader mine, I will take thee into 
my confidence, and, borrowing a favorite phrase of Lord 
Clarendon in his much be-praised and very heavy book 
" The History of the Great Rebellion," I will " let myself 
loose to say " that, viewed only in its social aspects, and 
without reference to its purely religious signification, 
which, though undoubtedly most consolatory, is too often 
eclipsed by the carnalities of the celebration, Christmas is 
but a melancholy time for people who have any faculty 
of thought, and have passed the age of five-and-twenty. 
Truly for them its mirth is very tragical. It is all very 
well for children who know not what care means, to 
whom " to-morrow " is a Canaan flowing with milk and 
honey ; whose spirits are unclouded by the shadows of 
coming sorrows ; whose palates are unpalled ; and whose 
digestion is unimpaired. Let them gather the rose-buds 
while they may, which is not for long ; let them laugh 
and gambol, be glad and rejoice. If they are not happy 
now, when may they hope to be so ! Ah ! when indeed. 
Who could find it in his heart to quell their delight, or 
*9 



290 



ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 



" to stop their tide of laughter with a sigh ? " Leave 
them at the high top-gallant of their mirth, and say not a 
word to damp the ardor of their joy. But really when 
we are arrived at that most irrational of all epochs, 
" years of discretion : " when we have lived to know 
what life truly is, how mournful, how precarious ; when 
our hearts are full of sad memories, and dark forebod- 
ings, how dismal then is the very thought of jollity, and 
with what a mocking echo do the sounds of conventional 
merriment fall upon the ear ! Christmas comes round 
again, and we are told to be jolly. The streets swarm 
with elated citizens, laboriously intent on pleasure ; the 
shops are decked out in finery \ the bells are ringing, 
and the busy note of preparation resounds through the 
land ; everywhere people are preparing to put on happi- 
ness like clothes : but another year is gone, gone past 
recall, and we sigh to think what havoc death has com- 
mitted since this time twelvemonth ; what gaps he has 
made in the circle of our friends ; what loved ones he 
has slain ; what homes he has destroyed ; what hearts 
he has made cold and desolate. How many were there 
among us bright and joyous last Christmas, whom we 
shall never see again ? 

" When I remember all 
The friends so linked together, 
I've seen around me fall 
Like leaves in wintry weather, 
I feel like one who treads alone 
Some banquet hall deserted, 
Whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead, 
And all save me departed." 

Trite lines, but how true ! We are reminded of that 
ghastly German story about the band of students who 



POST YULE- TIDE MEDITA TIONS. 29 1 

swore to dine together and drink one another's healths 
every Christmas-eve ; how exuberant was their mirth 
at first, but how it got clouded as years rolled on ; how 
every year saw a seat emptied and the company grow- 
ing thinner, till there was but one old man left to drink 
to his own health in a mirror ; and how he at last was 
found lying cold and stark by the side of his chair. 
But independently of the tragic vicissitudes to which, 
from the very conditions of humanity we are all of us 
subject, and which give a melancholy aspect to the re- 
currence of any anniversary, however festive in itself, 
there are circumstances, both social and climatic, which 
makes Christmas here in London anything rather than 
a season of enjoyment. It is a period fraught with 
calamity. The papers teem with accidents and of- 
fenses. " News " means the intelligence of shipwrecks, 
colliery explosions, railway collisions, marriages and 
other disasters, the mere recital whereof is almost 
enough to make one's blood run cold. Winter is ever 
rife with misfortunes — and with crime as well. Wit- 
ness the awful record of misdeeds chronicled in every 
journal. While plum-puddings are smoking upon every 
board and the loving-cup goes round, garotters are be- 
ing flogged and murderers are being hanged in batches 
of three or four at a time. So much for the social as- 
pect of Christmas in modern times. Nor are we more 
fortunate in matters meteorological. 

The Christmas season may now be divided into four 
chapters, entitled respectively Fog, Fat, Frost and 
Thaw. There was a time when November was supposed 
to be, and was, in fact, the foggiest of all the months 
in the year • but to that proud distinction it may no 
longer lay claim. November now-a-days is often a very 



2 g 2 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

enjoyable month — hardly less so than October, so dear 
to artists for its cold, gray days. November is keen, 
bluff, and stormy, but it is not unfrequently dry, clear 
and bracing. The palm of fogginess in climate now 
belongs as indisputably to December as does that of 
fogginess in meaning to Mr. Browning. We all remem- 
ber the dreadful fog in December, 1873, which was con- 
tinued from day to day for the best part of a week, like 
some appalling story in "The Penny Awful." The De- 
cember fog, in fact, is the most ominous harbinger of 
Christmas, and it is hardly possible to imagine anything 
in the way of atmospheric visitations more horrible or 
more depressing. Even Mr. Kingsley, who alone of 
all men living or dead, has sung the praises of the 
" East Wind," could hardly find it in his conscience to 
say a word in favor of the December fog, which envel- 
opes you as with a wet sheet, chokes you as with a filthy 
duster, and bothers and bewilders you out of your seven 
senses. It wraps up the sun in a mustard poultice, it 
takes the azure out of the sky and substitutes pea-soup, 
and enshrouds the world in clammy yellow vapors, 
which not only forbid all enjoyment of nature, but do 
the gravest injury to our health. Not to ours alone, 
for even the prize cattle at Islington succumb to their 
dreadful influence. Scarcely have we emerged from the 
fogs when we find ourselves in "The Festival of Fat." 
Of all celebrations ever witnessed in a civilized coun- 
try assuredly this is the most astounding. Generations, 
as yet unborn, will read with amazement the accounts 
of their fathers' proceedings in the matter, " and won- 
der what old world such sights could see." We sneer 
at the ancient Egyptians for worshipping an ox, yet all 
London, and all the country as well, throng in myriads 



POST YULE-TIDE MEDITATIONS. 



293 



to the Agricultural Hall to gaze in idolatrous admira- 
tion upon a fat bull, or a still fatter pig. Why this 
apotheosis of obese swine ? and whereof all this mighty 
ado about an adiposity, which, as in man so in the 
lower animals, simply betokens disease ? These greasy 
quadrupeds who can hardly waddle, and who can with 
difficulty see out of their eyes, so fat are they, are mere- 
ly suffering under a degeneration of tissue which ren- 
ders them as useless as uncomely. Not only are they 
unfit for any farming or agricultural purpose during 
their lifetime, but they will have no posthumous value 
in the sense of food for the human beings, of intelli- 
gence inferior to their own, who view them with wonder 
and affection. Oxen and pigs who are mountains of 
fat will never make good beef or pork. They are in 
that sense worthless, as they are in all senses ugly, but 
still, as Christmas approaches, people lose their wits 
about this pitiful exhibition, and multitudes of all 
classes and conditions, as well princes of the blood as 
" costers " from Whitechapel, all rush with equal eager- 
ness to take part in the Festival of Fat. A prize-fight 
was in, reality a much nobler spectacle. But we are too 
refined for pugilism, and the lower orders, discarding 
the use of their fists, have taken to kicking like horses, 
though in a far more brutal fashion. To the Festival 
of Fat succeeds a more brilliant and delightful celebra- 
tion — the Festival of Frost. But that it causes such 
suffering to the poor, and is so hurtful to the health of 
invalids, Frost might be welcomed with universal satis- 
faction, for it is marvellously beautiful and exceedingly 
favorable to manly sports and pastimes. Of the beauty 
and brilliancy of frost, they who dwell with trees around 
them as I have the happiness to do, and they alone, can 



294 ERRATIC ESSAYS. 

form the faintest idea. Those of my friends whose sad 
fate it is to look through their upper windows, back and 
front, upon a wilderness of chimney-pots vomiting forth 
coils of filthy smoke, have about as much notion of the 
grace and splendor of frost-work as a man blind from 
birth has of the prismatic glories of the rainbow. It 
is nothing to the purpose to say that at half-a-mile's dis- 
tance there may be a park where the trees are glistening 
in sunshine and rime. As well might a poor man seek to 
cull comfort in his poverty from the thought that a rich 
man may be living next door to him. If the park, how- 
ever near, be not within view, it does no more good to 
you while you are at home than if it were a hundred 
miles away. It is just the difference between the town 
and the country. I prefer the country, but " every man 
to his taste," as the farmer touchingly remarked when 
he kissed his cow instead of his wife. While I marvel 
at the " taste " of those who would prefer a chimney- 
pot to a tree, quite as much as at that farmer who 
would rather kiss a cow than a woman, I freely admit 
that every man's house is his castle, and far be it from 
me to disenchant him with his dwelling. Yet my 
friends who, as Tom Hood phrases, it delight to feast 
upon an " endless meal of brick and mortar," and who, 
therefore, know nothing about the effulgence of the 
frost — for who ever heard of the play of sun-beams 
through the frost-crystals of a chimney-pot ? — may take 
my word for it that the most poetic imagination can 
hardly picture to itself anything more magnificent than 
the form and expression of the trees during the frosty 
weather this Christmas. But the frosts in this island 
are but sorry affairs compared with those recorded not 
alone by Baron Munchausen, but by that still more 



POST YULE-TIDE MEDITATIONS. 295 

veracious historian Bishop Wilkins, who gravely assures 
us of the existence of " a cold country where discourse 
doth freeze in the air all winter and may be heard in 
the summer or at a great thaw." What a comfort it 
would be to be sure, if some folk's words would hang 
concreted midway in the air, even as they were being 
uttered, and what a still greater blessing if Spring 
revolving would but leave them there. The saddest 
thing about a frost is that it must of necessity be fol- 
lowed by a thaw, of all operations of external nature 
assuredly the most dismal and disheartening. There 
is no wittier simile in Shakespeare than that which he 
puts into the mouth of the jester — " I was the prince's 
jester, and duller than a great thaw ! " He must have 
been dull, indeed. A thaw suggests to a fanciful mind 
the idea that nature was drunk, or, as the slang phrase 
goes, "tight," over-night, and is going through the 
wretched discipline of getting sober. In a great city 
the spectacle is unspeakably miserable. Everything is 
so grim and slobbery. The street is like a turnip-field ; 
the footpaths are slimy and full of slush ; the eaves of 
the houses are " like Niobe, all tears ; " the sky resem- 
bles a vast dome of wet sponge ; the earth is like wet 
mortar ; it looks as though the whole world were falling 
to pieces. It speaks well for the innate geniality and 
good-humor of Falstaff that he could preserve his good 
spirits, pass his joke and quaff his sack, notwithstand- 
ing that he was, as he himself assures us, " subject to 
heat as butter, a man of continual dissolution and 
thaw /" but it is not easy to understand how a person 
of Hamlet's refined taste and exalted imagination 
could have desired that " his too, too solid flesh would 
melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew." Had his as- 



2 9 6 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

pirations been realized he would probably have found 
himself in no very comfortable condition. Yet a 
" thaw," as taken to symbolize the softening of an ob- 
durate nature, has a potent plenitude of meaning ; and 
the song of the poor maniac to his mistress is not with- 
out a certain touch of fantastic pathos — 

" I'll weave thee a garland of straw, my love, 
And I'll marry thee with a rush ring, 

And thine icy heart shalt thaw, my love, 
So merrily shall we sing." 

If so she was no strong-minded woman. Caesar was 
of sterner stuff — 

"Think not that Caesar bears such rebel blood 
That will be thawed from the true quality 
With that which melteth fools." 

And what a splendid metaphor is that of Dryden's, 
where he describes one of his heroes as being clad in 

" Burnished steel that cast a glare 
From far, and seemed to thaw the freezing air." 

But let the poets say what they may about a thaw, it 
is, of all things under the sun, the dreariest and most 
uncomfortable. It is bad enough in the streets, where 
it soaks you through and through, and causes you to 
tumble about in all directions ; but it is still worse when 
it invades your home, and making your pipes to burst, 
places you at the mercy of that most unconscionable of 
tyrants, the plumber. When that dreadful man. once 
crosses your threshold with his infernal soldering pots, 
and sets about pulling your house to pieces, shaking his 
head oracularly, peering down your cistern, squinting 



THE USES OF SYMPATHY. 297 

up your pipes, and telling you what a providential thing 
it is he has come in the nick of time, for that otherwise 
you would have been swept into the next parish by the 
rising floods— farewell to warmth and cleanliness, a long 
farewell to decency and comfort. The various phases 
of Fog, Fat, Frost and Thaw have been distinctively 
marked this Christmas. We who still survive have 
passed through them all triumphantly. We have feasted 
and made merry, we have quaffed our ale or wine as the 
case may have been, we have cut deep into our plum- 
puddings, we have given innumerable geese and turkeys 
cause to regret that they ever were born, we have had 
our fill of good old British roystering. The holidays 
are over, and right glad am I to think that we have got 
once more into quiet waters. 



THE USES OF SYMPATHY. 

O YMPATHY is precisely that one touch of nature 
which, as Shakespeare matchlessly phrases it, " makes 
the whole world kin." All that is most lovable and en- 
dearing, most refined and exalted in humanity, owes its 
origin to the impulses of that celestial instinct which 
prompts us to feel for others' woe. It is the. quintes- 
sence of honor ; it is the soul of heroism. What leads 
the forlorn hope in battle ? — what sends the hero of the 
fire brigade up blazing piles and through sheets of 
flame ? — what mans the lifeboat amid raging waves and 
howling winds ? — what makes women, young, lovely, and 
highborn, exchange the gilded saloons of fashion for 



298 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

the field of slaughter, " where rings the loud musket and 
flashes the sword ? " — what urges men who, without re- 
proach, might dwell at home at ease, to go forth with 
their lives in their hands to the deserts of Africa and 
the snow-fields of the Arctic regions in search of lost 
explorers ? — what should it be but sympathy ? This it 
is, and this alone that steels men and women of the 
noblest types to look death fearlessly in the face so that 
it may be said of them in aftertime that they died in a 
good cause — the best of all causes, the rescue of their 
fellow-creatures. " There never was any heart truly 
great and generous," writes Dr. South, " that was not 
also tender and compassionate. It is this noble quality 
that makes all men to be of one kind ; for every man 
would be a distinct species to himself were there no 
sympathy among individuals." Truthful as potent is the 
saying of Philip Massinger — 

" The eye that will not weep another's sorrow 
Should boast no gentler brightness than the glare 
That reddens in the eye-balls of the wolf." 

Softer and more melodious in expression, and equal- 
ly true in sentiment, is Byron's verse— 

" What gem hath dropped and sparkles o'er his chain ? 
The tear, most sacred, shed for other's pain, 
That starts at once bright pure from pity's mine 
Already polished by the hand divine." 

Very lovely too is Keats' definition of sympathy 
— the exquisite faculty that teaches us to share " the 
inward fragrance of each other's hearts." Indeed, it is 
not too much to say that a man is morally precious in 
the exact proportion that he is discerningly sympathe- 
tic. Measured by this standard, some men who have 



THE USES OF SYMPATHY. 299 

long passed for giants would be reduced to dwarfish 
proportions. Take for example Dr. Samuel Johnson, 
formerly of Bolt Court, Fleet Street, in the City of Lon- 
don. Few men enjoy to this day a higher renown as a 
moralist than he ; but what is that morality worth which 
is not instinct with kindness? Johnson made every 
now and then a mighty parade of his good nature, and 
there is no denying that he was occasionally capable of 
deeds of ostentatious benevolence ; but the general 
bearishness of his conduct and his systematic disregard 
of the feelings of others forbid the thought that he was, 
aufond, genuinely and thoroughly sympathetic. What 
an insight into his hard insensate character do we ob- 
tain from the following figment of a conversation be- 
tween him and his idolatrous biographer whom he took 
such delight in snubbing ! 

" Boswell : Suppose, sir, that one of your intimate 
friends were apprehended for an offence for which he 
might be hanged. Johnson : I should do what I could 
to bail him and give him any other assistance, but if he 
were once fairly hanged I should not surfer. Boswell : 
Would you eat your dinner that day, sir. Johnson : Yes, 
sir, and eat it as if he were eating with me ! " 

A Pagan philosopher in the darkest ages of Heathen- 
ism would have been ashamed to say so. To under- 
stand the height, depth and breadth of Johnson's selfish- 
ness as revealed in his own confession, we must bear 
in mind that he lived in an age when capital punishment 
by no means implied, as of necessity, heinous guilt in 
the offender. It was not, as in our times, murderers 
alone who were brought to the gallows. A man of many 
good qualities, who would shudder at the thought of 
blood, might be hanged, and as a matter of historic fact, 



3 oo ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

was frequently so disposed of, who in the desperation 
of poverty had committed no worse offense than bur- 
glary to the value of a shilling, or having ridden off 
upon a neighbor's horse without that neighbor's leave. 
Nay, there are cases in the books of men having been 
delivered over to the executioner for offenses for which 
a brief imprisonment would now be deemed sufficient 
expiation. Such was the state of the law in the days of 
Dr. Johnson, who, making high pretension to philan- 
thropy, did not scruple to assert that if one of his inti- 
mate friends were " once fairly hanged," he, the said 
Johnson, would eat his dinner on the day of the execu- 
tion as if he were eating it in company with the very 
friend who had come to so horrible a death ! So much 
for the sympathetic element in one whom posterity is 
wont to regard with peculiar veneration ! But that sort 
of talk was quite of a piece with Samuel's ordinary con- 
versation. " Sir," said he, on another occasion, to his 
Toady, " it is affectation to pretend to feel the distress 
of others as much as they do themselves. It is equally 
so as if one should pretend to feel as much pain while 
a friend's leg is cutting off as he does " — a remark of 
which all that we need say is that its humanity is on a 
par with its. grammar. From the coarse cynicism of 
Johnson to the joyous philosophy of Falstaff riow de- 
lightful is the transition ! It is as though one should be 
magically wafted from the London fog to the sunny 
orange-groves of Algeria. Sympathy, as interpreted by 
the fat knight, meant fellow-feeling, whether in weal or 
in woe — brotherhood of sentiment as well in joy as in 
sorrow. What can be more eloquent than Jack's defi- 
nition ? " You are not young ; no more am I. Go to, 
then! There's sympathy. You are merry, so am I. 



THE USES OF SYMPATHY. 



30I 



Ha ! ha ! Then there's more sympathy ; you love sack, 
so do I ; would you desire better sympathy ? " Cer- 
tainly not. Jack, my boy, thou art indeed the heart's- 
blood of a good fellow, and the world is indebted to 
thee for more happiness than it will ever derive from 
Sam Johnson, for all his learning and pomposity. 

And as sympathy is the highest endowment of Nature 
so also is it the finest achievement of art. Orators, 
poets, painters, sculptors, actors, are great in their re- 
spective callings in the precise proportion of their ability 
to touch the tender chord of sympathy in the human 
heart. The amount of their success in this regard is 
the exact measure of their skill. There are .speakers 
who, as the French are wont felicitously to express it, 
" ont des larmes dans la voix" have tears in their voices ; 
and magical indeed is the effect of their utterances. It 
is not so much what they say, as their manner of saying 
it, that awakens the sensibilities of their hearers. The 
" sanctimonious rhetoric " of Mr. Gladstone, as Mr. 
Disraeli once happily described it, falls mellinuously 
upon the ear, but rarely reaches the heart ■ nor indeed 
is Mr. Disraeli himself much more fortunate in this re- 
spect, for brilliant as he is in debate, and poignant in 
repartee, he is singularly deficient in tender emotion. 
There is but little of pathetic sentiment in anything 
that usually falls from the lips of Mr. Bright. Yet is 
his voice of a timbre so musical, manly, and sympa- 
thetic, that the most commonplace matter spoken by him 
would acquire a certain tragic significance in the de- 
livery. His voice is in itself eloquence, and that too 
of a very refined order, for he modulates it with the ut- 
most delicacy. Among by-gone orators I should im- 
agine that Burke, Erskine, and Curran, were probably 



302 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

the greatest masters of pathos. They belong to an era 
which is not likely to be paralleled in coming time, for 
our age is utilitarian and money-searching in a sense 
hardly consistent with picturesque and impassioned 
speech. Oratory, rare in the pulpit, has all but van- 
ished from the bar, and is now seldom heard even in 
what was once its peculiar domain — the legislative 
councils of the nation. We have but few native painters 
whose genius can be said to be sympathetic. Mr. Poole 
and Mr. Faed have the gift, though in senses as differ- 
ent as their styles are dissimilar. Madame Henrietta 
Browne is richly endowed in this regard ; still more so 
is Mr. Israels, who of all Continental artists is probably 
the most powerful in his appeal to the sympathies of 
the spectator. Two pictures of his I especially remem- 
ber as works not to be viewed without emotion. The 
one entitled " The Flitting," represents a poor widow 
by whose side toddle her two fatherless little children, 
while she is herself pushing before her, through a deso- 
late landscape, a little cart containing her few " sticks " 
of furniture, late on a cold autumnal evening, while the 
trees shiver in the bleak blast, and the rain-fraught sky 
looks dreary and disconsolate, and the dusk is quickly 
thickening into dark. The other simply reveals the in- 
terior of a peasant's cottage, where a mother and her 
son are saying grace with a guileless expression of pro- 
found devotion before partaking of their dinner, which 
consists of a dish of potatoes and one solitary herring. 
Their pious resignation in the midst of poverty, which 
is not abject only because no adversity encountered in 
such a spirit can be so described, is a sermon in colors, 
and may well wring the hearts of the selfish and lux- 
urious. The sympathetic element in poetry is its most 



THE USES OF SYMPA THY. 



3°3 



essential constituent. Without it there were no poetry 
worthy of the name. The dying speech of Hamlet to 
Horatio brings the tragedy to a tearful conclusion :— 
" If ever thou didst hold me in thy heart, absent thee 
from felicity awhile, and in this harsh world draw thy 
breath in pain to tell my story." As uttered by a melo- 
dious and sympathetic voice there is nothing in Shake- 
speare more touching than these words. I remember to 
have read in a country churchyard an epitaph which he 
who has ever lost a child under the like circumstance 
will probably appreciate in the plenitude of its pathetic 
beauty. It ran thus : — 

" Sacred to the sweet memory of Mary , who 

died in her 18th year. 

" Thine only fault, what travell'rs give the moon, 
Thy light was lovely, but — it died too soon." 

Shenstone's exquisite Latin epitaph on a young girl 
who perished in her prime has never been surpassed, 
perhaps never equalled, " Eheu! quam minus est cum 
aliis versari quam tut meminisse /" Gray's " Elegy," and 
Wolfe's " Burial of Sir John Moore," are alike immortal 
in right of their resistless appeals to the sympathy of 
the reader. Very sweet and tender, too, are these lines 
of Gerald Griffin on the death of his sweetheart : — 

" The tie is broke, my Irish girl, 
Which bound me here to thee, 
My heart has lost its only pearl, 
And thine at last is free ! 
Dead as the turf that wraps thy clay ! 
Dead as the stone above thee ! 
Cold as this heart which breaks to say 
It never more can love thee ! 



304 ERRA TIC ESS A VS. 

The calm pure eloquence and sublime simplicity of 
these lines are beyond all praise. But of all artists the 
actor exercises the most powerful sway over the sympa- 
thies of humanity. True, his triumphs are short-lived as 
instantaneous, but they are superb, enchanting. Mr. 
Justice Talfourd has a charming passage upon this sub- 
ject : — . 

" Surely no career is more apparently joyous, more 
crowded with pleasure, and more abundant in rewards 
than that of a successful actor. Nor is his art, when 
honorably pursued, wanting in dignity. He is not a 
mere reciter of the poet's language, for his greatest 
successes often occur when the words are few and un- 
important, and when he has no prompter inferior to 
nature. It is nothing to detect shades of tenderness 
and thought — streaks and veins of fancy, as a painter 
discovers graces in the landscape unheeded by others ? 
Is it nothing to bid a crowded theatre feel those touches 
of nature which make the whole world kin ; to break 
the crust of self-love which encircles the worldling's 
heart and compel it to feel for others ; to afford some 
hint to the rude clown of the heroism and the suffering 
of which his nature is capable, and to impart the first 
mild touch of sympathy and thought to the child ? These 
surely are triumphs worth achieving ; if they are short 
in duration they are proportionately intense, and are in 
truth the more genial as they partake of the fragility 
which belongs to all the pride and glory of human life." 

Happily for the world, sympathy is of no particular 
class, creed, or country, — it is common to them all. 
Who has not some times missed it where he had the 
best right to expect it ? Who has not sometimes found 
it where he had the least reason to look for it ? I have 



THE DELIGHTS OF MUSIC. 305 

received it with equal liberality from foreigners and my 
own countrymen — plenteously at the hands of Christians, 
and quite as abundantly at those of a Hebrew family 
accomplished as benevolent. It is the sweetest solace 
of life, and without it life were little worth. 



THE DELIGHTS OF MUSIC. 

TF there is in this turbulent little planet of ours one 
"*■ thing thoroughly delightful, altogether enjoyable, it 
is assuredly music. Talk of the world without the sun ! 
The world without the gamut were quite as intolerable. 
The alliance between the heart of man and the concord 
of sweet sounds is mystical as subtle. For every 
phase of human feeling, for every mode of human 
thought, there is a correspondent symphony. If a man 
be in a merry mood, music will enhance the brilliancy 
and effervescence of his mirth ; if he be sorrowful, 
music will either dispel his anguish or shed around him 
a sentiment of luxurious sadness more acceptable than 
the most uproarious merriment ; if he would taste the 
pleasures of the festive board, music will make him 
Anacreontic ; if he would be devout, music will develop 
all that is reverential in his nature and waft him to the 
seventh heaven. " The meaning of song goes deep," 
says Mr. Carlyle. " Who is there that in logical words 
can express the effect music has on us? — ; a kind of 
inarticulate unfathomable speech, which leads us to 
the edge of the infinite and lets us for moments gaze 
into that " — 

20 



306 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

" Music ! oh, how faint, how weak, 
Language fades before thy spell ; 
Why should feeling ever speak, 
When thou canst breathe her soul so well ? 
Friendship's balmy words may feign — 
Love's are even more false than they ; 
Oh ! 'tis only music's strain 
Can sweetly soothe and not betray." 

A germ of profound philosophy lurks in each conceit 
of the Hellenic mythology ; and the surrender of Eury- 
dice by the Powers of Darkness, who were unable to 
resist the melodies of Orpheus, is an illustration potent 
as picturesque of the dominion of music even over 
natures the most rugged and rancorous. The most 
brilliant of essayists is thoughtful, and witty as usual, 
in descanting on this subject. " It cost Timotheus, I 
dare say, a great deal of fine playing to throw the soul 
of Alexander into a tumult of feeling ; but that once 
accomplished the bard harped him into any passion he 
pleased. However this be true of Timotheus and 
Alexander, it is certainly true of music in general. If 
we are stupid or indolent we resist its powers for some 
time ; but when the twangings and the beatings and the 
breathings once reach the heart and set it moving with 
all its streams of life, the mind bounds from grief to joy, 
from joy to grief, without effort or pang, but seems 
rather to derive its keenest pleasures from the quick 
vicissitudes of passion to which it is exposed. It is the 
same with acting. It is difficult to rouse the mind from 
an ordinary state to a dramatic state ; but that once 
done we glide with ease from any passion to its opposite. 
See the effect of a long piece of music at a public concert. 
The orchestra are breathless with attention, jumping 
into major and minor keys, executing fugues, and fiddling 



THE DELIGHTS OF MUSIC. 



307 



with the most ecstatic precision. In the midst of all 
this wonderful science the audience are gaping, lolling, 
talking, staring about, and half devoured with ennui. 
On a sudden there springs up a lively little air, expres- 
sive of some natural feeling, though in point of science 
not worth a halfpenny, — the audience all spring up, 
every head nods, every foot beats time, and every heart 
also ; a universal smile breaks out on every face, the 
carriage is not ordered, and every one agrees that music 
is the most delightful rational entertainment that the 
human mind can possibly enjoy." 

In discoursing upon the genius and works of Mendels- 
sohn, a learned critic observes that the ' Songs Without 
Words,' which are amongst the most popular parlor-mu- 
sic in the world, " had their origin in the habitual ne- 
cessity for musical expression in place of verbal. The 
apparent anomaly involved in their title ceases when it 
is remembered that these charming wordless lyrics were 
really the native language of the composer, and that he 
is in them as truly descriptive, thoughtful, impassioned, 
or even satirical, as if he had held the pen of Barry 
Cornwall or Heinrich Heine." For my own part, I 
have as little sympathy as admiration for the man who 
is insensible to the charms of music, and unable to in- 
terpret its utterances. I would not make a friend of 
such a man. I would not trust him with change for 
half-a-crown. I believe that such a man could find it in 
his heart to rob a mouse of the bit of toasted cheese in 
its trap. As for marrying a woman without musical taste 
and talent, I declare to you I had as soon go about with 
a hedgehog under 'my waistcoat. Such persons are 
flinty-hearted, insensate, and hardly deserve to be ac- 
counted human. No man nor woman either who did 



3 08 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

not admire music and respond to its eloquent appeals 
was ever yet in love. " How silver sweet sound lovers' 
tongues by night, like softened music to attending 
ears ! " If you doubt it go down to Rosherville one of 
these lovely autumnal nights. What time the south 
wind sighs aromatically over the gardens, and the lady 
moon §ails queen-like through the sable sky, hearken to 
the echoes of tinkling laughter and romantic vows issu- 
ing from the myrtle-groves ; and placing your hand upon 
your heart, while you raise your hat reverentially, deny, 
if you dare, that any such delightful melody ever before 
fell upon your ravished ears ! and as music is the de- 
light of courtship, so also it is the happiest privilege of 
matrimony. It is charming in every sense of the word 
to see married couples get on " harmoniously " together. 
I am not myself a husband, but I know a man who is, 
and he assures me that on returning to his villa at Nor- 
wood, after a hard day's work in the City, it is sufficient 
compensation for all his toil and trouble to find the be. 
loved partner of his joys and sorrows seated at a piano 
(purchased on the three years' system) and singing 
" Home, Sweet Home," in accents so sonorous that they 
are distinctly audible on the other side of the road. One 
evening last week he was so entranced with the dear old 
ballad that he could not for the life of him summon cour- 
age to knock at his own door, so he sat down upon a 
grassy bank opposite, exclaiming with Shakespeare : — 

" How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! 
Here will I sit, and let the sounds of music 
Creep in my ears ; soft stillness and the night 
Become the touches of sweet harmony." 

It was not until his wife had given over singing 
that he could be induced to cross his own threshold 






THE DELIGHTS OF MUSIC. 309 

and clasp her in his arms. Have you ever observed 
what an atmosphere of melody seems to dwell around 
some people ! how musically they speak as well as sing ; 
what a " sweet " smile plays around their lips, and what 
music breathes from their faces ? There is a tender ca- 
dence to every word they speak or write. It has a dying 
fall. Their pens are as melodious as their tongues. 
They are, generally speaking, very good people who 
write and talk thus. 

Variety in music, as in most things else, is desirable ; 
but variety must not be carried too far. One of the 
officials in the Bethnal Green Workhouse is a very zeal- 
ot, and did a wonderful thing the other day. He en- 
couraged three blind fiddlers to play as many distinct 
tunes at the same time, while he sang a song which was 
unconnected with any one of them. This proceeding, 
though not in strict accordance with the rules of harmony, 
had at least the merit of originality, and I cannot help 
thinking that the guardians acted rather harshly in dis- 
missing from his place an officer guilty of no worse of- 
fence. On the other hand there is no denying that music 
should be both taught and practised upon sound princi- 
ples. In this, as in many other respects, we owe a vast 
deal to our street musicians — dear fellows ! 'Indeed it 
may well be doubted whether there is any class of men to 
whom the British public are so largely indebted for the 
means of intellectual enjoyment, furnished, be it remem- 
bered under circumstances of peculiar danger and diffi- 
culty. 

These gallant troubadours, who, coming here foot-sore 
and travel-stained from far-distant lands, take up their 
positions in our most swarming thoroughfares, and 
there, heedless of the multitudinous noises and defiant 



3io 



ERRATIC ESSAYS. 



of the roaring traffic around them, play " The Last Rose 
of Summer," " My Jane, my Jane, my Pretty Jane," to 
the accompaniment of myriads of wheels, are very Pal- 
ladins of their art and deserve to be ranked among the 
greatest benefactors of the human race. To see a trou- 
badour of this class lugging about an organ almost as 
heavy as a mangle on a burning day in mid-summer, 
limping from one door to another, and grinding and 
grinning simultaneously, sweet pet, as he limps ; to see 
such a sight as that is to witness as heroic a spectacle 
as the ages of chivalry could exhibit. And what, both 
at home and abroad, is the reward of these devoted min- 
strels ? In the streets of Rome I have seen an ungrate- 
ful populace turn upon them with wolfish rage and fling 
their organs into the Tiber ; in the streets of London I 
have seen them — alas the day ! — " run in " by remorse- 
less bobbies at the point of the truncheon and treated 
with the utmost contumely. Yet these and such as these 
are the men who come here to humanize and refine us j 
to indoctrinate us in an exquisite art ; to shed melody 
upon our fog, and to enliven and diversify the clamor- 
ous operations of our commerce with such strains of 
music as never entered into the contemplation of Mozart 
or Beethoven. Nor is this devotion in our cause limited 
to the ruder sex. How often do we see a lovely woman 
playing the trombone or cornopean on the kerb-stone 
in Oxford Street, Holborn, or the Strand. A more 
touching or more beautiful sight is not to be imagined. 
The performance is such as may be best relished by a 
blind man with wool in his ears. It is very certain that 
the education of the British Public is sadly defective in 
all that relates to the delights of music. In this regard 
we are badly off, though by no means so badly as were 



THE DELIGHTS OF MUSIC. 



3" 



our ancestors. Sir John Hawkins gives a melancholy 
view of the opportunities furnished to the middle and 
lower classes of society in the latter part of the seven- 
teenth century for the study and enjoyment of music. 
The nobility, of course, had private concerts of paid 
performers, as, to a certain extent, they had probably 
always been accustomed to. Then for classes lower in 
position we find a kind of public concert gradually 
growing into use, of which the chief manager was Mr. 
John Banister, but as to the people generally, it seems 
the major part of them were satisfied with entertain- 
ments given at public-houses and by performers hired 
by the landlords. He says, " There was no variety of 
parts, no commixture of different instruments ; half-a- 
dozen fiddlers would scrape " St. Leger's Round," or 
" John, come kiss me," or " Old Simon, the King," with 
divisions, till themselves or their audience were tired ; 
after which, as many players on the hautboy would, in 
most harsh and discordant tones, grate forth " Green 
Sleeves," " Yellow Stockings," " Gillian of Croydon," 
or some such common dance tune, and people thought 
it fair music; but a great reformation was at hand, 
though everybody was astonished at the quarter from 
which it came." Mr. Charles Knight tells us all about 
it. " There was then to be seen walking through the 
streets of London a man distinguished from his rivals 
in the same trade — that of selling small coal from a bag 
carried over his shoulder — by his peculiar musical cry, 
by his habit of stopping at every book-stall that lay in 
his way,' where, if there happened to be a treasure, it 
was sure to be caught up and . purchased ; and by his 
acquaintances, many of whom as they paused to speak 
to him in the street, were evidently members of a very 



312 



ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 



different rank of society to his own. Ask any bystander 
you see gazing upon him with a look of mingled wonder 
and respect, who or what he is, and you are answered 
' that he is the small coal-man who is a lover of learn- 
ing, a performer of music, and a companion for gentle- 
men any day of his life. It was, indeed, Thomas Brit- 
ton, the founder of popular concerts. Let us follow him 
home to his little coal-shed and house cheerily as he 
goes, where all traces of the business of the day soon 
disappear. An hour or two elapses, and he is in the 
midst of a delightful circle of friends and fellow ama- 
teurs exchanging sincere congratulations, paying his re- 
spects to new visitors, opening music books, and tuning 
his violin. These harmonious meetings, which began 
in 1678, appear to have continued until the death of 
Britton, which, it is painful to add, occurred through 
them. A certain Justice Robe was among the mem- 
bers, one of the vilest of social nuisances — a practical 
joker. This man introduced into Britton's company a 
ventriloquist named Honeyman, who, making his voice 
descend apparently from on high, announced to Britton 
his approaching decease, and bade him on his knees 
repeat the Lord's Prayer by way of preparation. The 
command was obeyed, and a few days afterwards the 
subject of it was lying a corpse, overcome by the terrors 
of the imagination thus recklessly and basely worked 
upon." Yet cruel as was his end, he has left behind 
him a name that " smells sweet and blossoms in the 
dust," for he was the pioneer of a great movement, and 
posterity must ever be his debtor for his noble though 
simple efforts to bring the delights of music within the 
reach of the people. 



COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO. 313 



COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO. 

HPHE immortal maxim of the ancient naturalists — 
■*- "Omne vivum ex ovo" everything living sprang first 
from an egg — has its parallel precept in the moral 
world, and that precept may be thus defined — all 
sociable and political ethics are referable to the same 
grand source — Cock-a-doodle-doo. As surely as you 
may trace the lineage of the oak to the acorn, so surely 
may you trace the fine springs of action in all depart- 
ments of human enterprise to the same origin — Cock-a- 
doodle-doo. Resolve philosophy to its elements ; ana- 
lyze heroism ; reduce to their constituents the most 
romantic feats of chivalry and the most intrepid exploits 
of adventure, and what do they all come to ? Cock-a- 
doodle-doo. Whether among communities or individu- 
als the same assertion holds good. The mystical and 
irrepressible delight that we find in crowing over one 
another was at the bottom of every war that has deso- 
lated the earth, and of every quarrel that has set friends 
by the ears from the dawn of creation to this day. Men 
and women have been described as " unfeathered and 
biped." Yet have they wings, which to flap defiantly in 
one another's faces, to the jubilant chorus of " Cock-a- 
doodle-doo," is simply the sweetest pleasure and the 
loftiest pride of which humanity is capable. Nations go 
to war for an idea — and what is that idea? Cock-a- 
doodle-doo. France wanted to have the crow over Ger- 
many, and to that end plunged into a conflict the most 
fatally disastrous in the whole history of the Gallic race. 



3 1 4 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

There was a mighty " crow " over Saarbriick, but a still 
mightier over Sedan, only there the wrong bird was 
singing ; the tables were turned and the Teutonic cock 
had the crowing all to himself. Well, Germany com- 
pelled her foe to bij:e the dust, in fact took all the 
" crow " out of her, and, not content with such bitter 
terms, seems resolved never again to allow her to wake 
the welkin with her clarion note. Poor France ! What 
is to become of her ? A " crow " is the dear delight of 
her heart, yet never again must she presume to indulge 
in the priceless luxury. Let her not attempt it, for 
no sooner shall she have expanded her wings and opened 
her beak than Prince Bismarck and General Von Moltke 
will be down upon her in fell swoop and compel her to 
" shut up " or " hold her row," as Mr. Brown is wont 
ungallantly to phrase it when attempting to reduce Mrs. 
Brown to silence. There was a time when we English 
were as good '■' crowers " as any on earth. Those were 
the good old days of prize-fighting and eke cock-fighting, 
when three bottles of old port was the regulation allow- 
ance for each guest at a dinner party ; when it was an 
article of popular belief never to be called in question 
that one Englishman could lick any three foreigners, 
and when Lord Nelson laid it down as an indisputable 
maxim of logic that the only way for a Briton to argue 
with a Frenchman was to knock him down. It was a 
sweet thing in " crows," then, to boast that the sun 
never sets upon our empire — and, indeed, considering 
how seldom Jie rises upon our metropolis, the least he 
can do is to give us some compensation in the matter of 
setting, or rather of not doing so. Alas ! the pity of it, 
but those also were the days when Britannia ruled the 
waves (though not very straightly), and when Britons 



COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO. 3 1 5 

swore a deep oath never to be slaves. The bondsman 
setting foot upon our shores found his limbs growing 
mysteriously too large for his gyves, which, accordingly, 
were wont to burst asunder, leaving him as free as 
mountain-breezes. We no longer talk in that exalted 
strain. We brag no more about our national glory; 
but, intent on money-making, and on that alone, leave 
the game of " crowing" to poorer nations. 

A wedding is a " crow " — a splendid " crow " — for the 
bride. As for the bridegroom, the less he says about it 
the better. His days of jubilation are over, unless, in- 
deed, he be like Mr. Selby in Sir Charles Grandison, 
who, though vanquished every day by his wife, " still 
went on crowing with undaunted vigor." But the triumph 
of the bride is great, indeed, and greater now than at 
any former period of our history ; for, if it is true, as 
statisticians assure us, that there are at present in Eng- 
land many hundred thousands of women, who, though 
marriageable, are unappropriated, how delightful must 
be the sensations of the woman who secures a husband 
while such myriads of her sisters fail to get one for love 
or money ! That is indeed, a " crow " worthy of the 
name. So, too, is a birth ; for Smollett observes with 
happy wit that when that event occurs in a family, there 
is not a woman in the house who does not look three 
inches taller in consequence. Here, again, the advan- 
tage is, as usual, with the ladies. It is all very well for 
the mother. She is entitled, sweet pet, to her maternal 
" crow," and much good may it do her ! — but the father 
is simply an object of ridicule, in everybody's way, and 
a nuisance to the household. The whist-table is a fine 
arena for crowing. Unless, indeed, the regular gam- 
blers who play " high," and go in for large stakes, no one 



3 1 6 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

would care to join in a rubber but for the crow of it. It 
is such a glorious thing to throw the ace of trumps upon 
your adversary's king, or to win the odd trick by any 
means just as the opposite party were gloating over the 
thought that the prize was theirs. Depend upon it the 
charm of the game dwells not in the winnings, which are 
a matter of trivial consideration, but rather in the crow- 
ing which brings with it a delightful sensation. And so, 
indeed, it is in every kind of competition. What is it that 
gives zest and true enjoyment to the Oxford and Cam- 
bridge Boat Race ; to the Derby and the Ascot ; to the 
cricket-matches between Eton and Harrow ; to the 
lunatic proceedings of the " Spelling Bee " ? It is no- 
thing more nor less than Cock-a-doodle-doo. The 
country is far more favorable than the town to the com- 
fortable and frequent enjoyment of "crowing;" for 
Mrs. Grundy lives almost exclusively in the country, 
there inculcating that meddlesome interference with 
other people's affairs which supplies perpetual oppor- 
tunities for a " crow." In a village every new bonnet is 
a " crow " for the wearer ; but no great mischief is done, 
for the girl who is crowed at to-day knows that next 
Sunday it will be her turn to crow. 

" Crowing," therefore, is not without its pleasant uses. 
While kept strictly within the bounds of good taste and 
good feeling, it is in truth one of the means and appli- 
ances of happiness. It is only when it is suffered to 
transgress those limits that it degenerates into ill-nature 
and becomes odious. There is a kind of " crow " which 
is little less than fiendish in its malignity — that com- 
prised in the reproachful and triumphant exclamation, 
" I told you so ! " 



COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO. 3 Y j 

" Of all the horrid hideous notes of woe, 

Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast, 
Is that portentous phrase, ' I told you so,' 

Uttered by friends, those prophets of the past 
Who, 'stead of saying what you now should do, 

Own they foresaw that you would fall at last, 
And solace your slight lapse 'gainst bonos mores 

With a long memorandum of old stories." 

Of this, rest confidently assured that the man who, in 
the hour of your defeat and mortification, would taunt 
you with the good advice he gave, and you discarded, 
chuckles in his sleeve at your disaster and finds in a 
spiteful " crow " at your expense ample compensation 
for any inconvenience your misfortune may have caused 
him. It was a lad of that ungracious type, take my word 
for it, who, when trouble had befallen his father and 
mother, instead of sympathizing with them as a good 
son would have done, crowed after this insolent 
fashion : — 

" Cock-a-doodle-doo ! 
Mother's lost her shoe, 
Father's lost his fiddle-stick 
And doesn't know what to do, 

Sing Cock-a-doodle doo ! 

The boy who could express himself thus unfeelingly 
had in all probability purloined both the shoe and the 
fiddlestick, and did not care a straw what inconvenience 
his parents might be put to in consequence. And to 
think what a vile ignoble creature man is ! and what a 
seraphic being is woman ! It is an every-day occurrence 
to hear husbands say to their wives, " I told you so ; " 
but who in this world ever yet heard a wife address her 
husband in any such terms ? There is not one solitary 



3 1 8 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

instance upon record of a wife having ever spoken these 
words or any similar ones to her spouse. And yet 
there are brutes who would not give women votes ! 
Why, it is only women who should be allowed to vote. 
Then, again, there are dunces whose joy knows no 
bounds if they can only catch you tripping in a quotation. 
True, they are themselves the merest smatterers. You 
may have read, from cover to cover, more books than 
they ever heard the names of ; and it is like enough 
that the particular passage in which you are at fault is 
the only one in the language that they know correctly. 
They may have picked it out of a dictionary of quota- 
tions, or it may have served them in childhood for a 
copy-slip. These considerations might teach them 
modesty. If they were really erudite they would be 
generous, remembering that "what is obvious is not 
always known, and what is known is not always present ; 
that sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise vigilance, 
slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual 
eclipses of the mind will darken learning : and that the 
writer shall often in pain trace his memory at the mo- 
ment of need, for that which yesterday he knew with 
intuitive readiness, and which will come uncalled into 
his thoughts to-morrow." But considerations such as 
these are beyond the appreciation of the shallow. They 
cannot afford to be generous. So, by all means let them 
have their little " crow." Compliment them on their 
erudition, and express your profound admiration of the 
splendor and variety of their genius. That is the only 
way to be even with such small deer. 



DOWN IN YOUR LUCK. 



319 



THE COMFORT OF BEING DO WN IN YOUR 
LUCK. 

TT is no uncommon habit with men who, as the 
•*■ phrase goes, " have not succeeded in life " to cherish 
a morbid sentiment of fiitie de soi, as though they were 
the martyrs of a destiny exceptionally severe. This 
opinion involves a delusion egotistical as irreverent. It 
is egotistical as arrogating for the man who holds it 
undue importance in the economy of nature that he 
should be deemed worthy of such penal distinction ; it 
is irreverent as ascribing to Providence the cruelty and 
injustice of marking out particular individuals of the 
human race for a rigor of treatment amounting to per- 
secution. A fallacy lies at the bottom of the whole 
conception, the fallacy of supposing that no penalties, 
but privileges and prerogatives alone are attached to 
greatness. The heathen philosophers fell into no such 
error. They reminded the world that the Angel of 
death knocks with impartial foot at the palaces of kings 
and the cottages of poor men ; and they depicted the 
warrior in the proudest hour of his triumph as riding 
jubilantly along, with Care seated behind his saddle. 
A dispassionate view of mundane affairs must conduct 
us to the conclusion that while the opportunities of hap- 
piness are distributed equably throughout all classes of 
the community, they are but a handful of people to 
whose lot fall the gifts of Fortune. Here too the 
Ancients were wiser than are many of our Christian 
sages. It was a proverbial saying among the Romans — 



320 



THE COMFORT OF BEING 



" Non cuivis contingit adire Corinthum" — it is not every 
one who can get to Corinth ; and the liability of the 
good and patient to have their wealth and honor wrested 
from them by others has been nowhere illustrated more 
ingeniously than in the melodious verses of Virgil, " Sic 
vos non vobis" etc. Felicity is independent of rank and 
affluence, and is often found in highest perfection where 
these are not ; but " success " in the worldly sense of 
the word is rare indeed : — 

" Order was Heaven's first law, and, this confest, 
Some are and must be greater than the rest, 
More rich, more wise, but who infers from hence 
That such are happier shocks all common sense." 

He who, overlooking this great truth, broods darkly 
over his own disasters, while men of inferior worth are 
wealthy and eminent, will do well to bear in mind that 
failure to attain not alone fame and fortune, but even a 
competency is the inevitable lot of the overwhelming 
majority of mankind. No man — being nothing more 
than man — ever concentrated in his own person the 
sorrows and disappointments of the human race. 
Myriads of the noblest men and women who ever 
adorned humanity have had to struggle hopelessly with 
misfortune from the cradle to the grave, and have 
passed away leaving no more memorial than if they had 
never existed. They were good and gifted — rich in 
mental as in moral attributes of choicest excellence, — 
but though their friends may dwell lovingly on their 
memories, the world knows them not and never knew 
them. Men and women of much smaller desert are 
remembered ; but they are never named. To make the 
amount of a man's success the measure of his merit is a 



DOWN IN YOUR LUCK. 



32T 



vulgar error, and worthy of the vulgar, since nothing 
can be more irrational. " A great battle is gained," 
writes a thoughtful author, " the plan and dispositions 
of which are admirable ; the general who conducted the 
army is considered as a consummate master of the 
military art, and arrives at the very summit of reputation 
as an accomplished officer ; but this plan of the battle 
was drawn out for him the evening before by one of his 
aides-de-camp, whose original conception it was, and to 
whom the merit is really due." Which is the more envi- 
able situation ? His who is praised without being 
worthy, or his who is praiseworthy without being 
praised ? Nobody, surely, can entertain a moment's 
doubt about the matter that the praiseworthiness is pre- 
ferable to the praise. In this sense spake Addison in 
that oft-quoted but little heeded passage, " 'Tis not in 
mortals to command success, but we'll do more, Sem- 
pronius, we'll deserve it." Byron, in a vein of bitter 
irony, changed the reading thus, " But do you more, 
Sempronius, dorCt deserve it ; and never fear that you 
will have the less." Very possibly you may have all 
the more ; for who does not know that here below the 
" race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong." 
One Caesar lives, a thousand are forgotten. It is in the 
very nature of things that it should be so. Some needs 
must lose that some may win the race. Hamlet had a 
pathetic visitation of this thought when in the plenitude 
of his anguish and distraction he exclaimed — 

" Why, let the stricken deer go weep, 

The heart ungalled play; 
For some must watch while some must sleep, 

So runs the world away ! " 
21 



322 



THE COMFORT OF BEING 



Yet we continually hear some man or another say in 
despairing accents, " Ah ! it is just like my luck." True, 
it may be just like his luck, but it is also every bit as 
like the luck of countless millions of the human family ; 
for failure is the rule, success the exception all the world 
over. Indeed nothing can more distinctly proclaim a 
degenerate nature than the propensity to value a man, 
not by his intrinsic qualities, but rather by the glittering 
accidents of fortune which often befall the most worth- 
less, leaving the truly meritorious without guerdon or 
*eward. 

" A knave's a knave to me in every state, 

Alike my scorn if he succeed or fail, 

Sporus at court or Japhet in a jail." 

" If we should fail ! " suggested the conscience- 
stricken Macbeth. " We fail ! " echoed tauntingly his 
remorseless wife. " But screw your courage to the 
sticking-point, and we'll not fail ! " Just so ; but cour- 
age in a bad cause is villany ; and success won by such 
means, what is it else than infamy ? It happens not 
unfrequently that good men prosper, and their prosperity 
gives joy to the generous and right-minded, be their own 
condition what it may ; but really, when we look around 
us and see how often it occurs that men of little worth 
flourish luxuriantly, while the virtuous are doomed to 
perpetual penury, we may well, pause ere we envy the 
successful or contemn the unfortunate. " I confess," 
says an excellent writer, " that increasing years bring 
with them an increasing respect for men who do not 
succeed in life, as those words are commonly used. Ill 
success sometimes arises from a conscience too sensi- 
tive, a taste too fastidious, a self-forgetfulness too 
romantic, a modesty too retiring. I will not go so far 



DOWN IN YOUR LUCK. 



323 



as to say with a living poet that the world knows noth- 
ing of its greatest men, but there are forms of greatness, 
or at least of excellence, which die and make no sign ; 
there are martyrs that miss the palm but not the stake, 
heroes without the laurel, and conquerors without the 
triumph." This fine thought may well give spirit to 
the afflicted and comfort to the unlucky. What can be 
more consolatory to such people than to know that 
many of the best and most brilliant fellows who ever 
existed were doomed to vexation and disappointment 
all the days of their lives. Nothing can be more absurd 
than that a man should be miserable merely because he 
is down in his luck. That, on the contrary, is the very 
reason why he should be light-hearted, for any change 
in his destiny must be. for the better. If he were in 
prosperous circumstances he might well dread the mor- 
row, not knowing what calamitous vicissitudes it might 
bring with it ; but being in adversity, he may cherish 
the hope that the next revolution of the wheel of Fortune 
may whisk him out of the sandy desert into a land over- 
flowing with milk and honey. " Qui sedet in terra non 
habet unde cadat" — " he who is content to sit upon the 
ground need not fear a fall." Consider, moreover, the 
mental serenity enjoyed by a fellow who is perennially 
down in his luck. " What is glory ? what is gain ? 
Heavier toil ; superior pain." But this toil and this 
pain touch not the man who is systematically unlucky. 
He has missed the splendors of success, but with the 
splendors the solicitudes also. Stocks may rise and 
fall ; banks may fail ; the rate of discount may be raised 
to a ruinous figure ; the markets maybe at famine prices 
— what need he care ? He has known the worst, and 
may laugh in the face of Fortune. He need never dread 



324 THE COMFORT OF BEING 

bad news, nor tremble at the knock of a dun. Where's 
the use of dunning a fellow who is down in his luck ? 
Samson was a strong man, and Solomon was a wise 
man, but neither the strength of Samson nor the wisdom 
of Solomon could get money out of a man who has none. 
Such a man may sing before a highwayman, and, should 
he be visited by burglars, he may break a jest with them 
on the folly of their seeking in his house at night for the 
property he himself cannot find there in the daytime. 
It is only the man down in his luck who can taste the 
ineffable pleasure of Hope. It is when our fortunes are 
at their very lowest ebb that Hope speaks in most 
seraphic accents. Nothing in the conduct of Madame 
Bazaine was more worthy of admiration than her reply 
to Marshal MacMahon, when, being supplicated for a 
remission of Bazaine's sentence, he said he could give 
•no hope. "I do not ask you, sir, for hope," said the 
dauntless wife. " It is not yours to give or to deny. 
Hope is in the gift of God alone, and He gives it to all 
His creatures." The man who has been down in his 
luck, and he alone, can estimate this noble utterance at 
its true value. Moreover, the man who is down in his 
luck may defy the shafts of envy. Nobody ever envied 
a fellow who is down in his luck, and that I hold to be 
an immense advantage, for envy is composed of hatred 
in the proportion of nine parts out of ten, and who can 
endure the thought of being hated ? Better to be loved 
in a shabby hat and threadbare coat than hated in 
purple and fine linen. A certain air of ridicule sur- 
rounds the man who is down in his luck, and that is in 
itself an element of happiness. I know of nothing more 
exquisitely enjoyable than that a man should find in 
himself a never-failing source of derision. I do not 



DO WN IN YO UR L UCK. 325 

mean to say that my lot has been exceptionally severe, 
or severe beyond my demerits ; but this I do say — I 
have had my share of sorrow. Enough said ! It may 
be that these perishing lines shall find their way into 
the hands of some other fellow who is down in his luck. 
If so, I would say to him, " Be of good heart, brother ! 
Never give up ! It will be all the same in a hundred 
years. Take counsel with thyself, thy Maker, and the 
Angel Death. Cometh the day and cometh it quickly 
when sorrow and solicitude, malice and ingratitude, shall 
have no more power to wring our hearts. Soundly shall 
we sleep where the willows are waving." " Hie vera 
quies, hie meta laboris." 



THE THISTLES OF LITERATURE. 

TT occurred to me the other day to make a cruise 
-"■ among my books in search of what Dryden calls 
" the sweet civilities of life," that I might filch some of 
them for presentation to my friends. The result was a 
deplorable failure. I am like the sheep who went for 
wool and came home shorn. Heaven forefend that I 
should address any friend of mine or even foe in the 
language of the great ! The laurel of immortality is 
after all in the gift of the unlettered million. They it 
is who assign to every man the measure of his renown, 
and award to each the precise position- in the temple of 
fame to which his merits entitle him. It is well that it 
should be so, for if the world's magnates were allowed 
to write each other's epitaphs, tombstones would tell 



326 ERRATIC ESSAYS. 

anything rather than flattering tales. Your great men 
have spoken all manner of unhandsome things one of 
the other j and if it were but possible to collect in one 
volume all that they have said in each other's defama- 
tion, it would be as strange a book as ever was printed. 
This internecine hostility among the great is not a thing 
of yesterday. It has been so in all ages, and it will 
probably so continue till the last syllable of recorded 
time. In the classic days of yore Homer had his Zoilus, 
Philip his Demades, Caesar his Catullus, and the Gods 
themselves their Momus. Scaliger called Lucian the 
" Cerberus of the Muses," and Lactantius and Theo- 
doret denounced Socrates as a "fool." But this is 
going too far into the shadowy realms of antiquity. 
Let us come nearer home and see whether we cannot 
cull a choice bouquet from the mutual compliments 
of men who have lived within the range of modern his- 
tory. 

Bishop Warburton was undoubtedly a man of bold, 
fertile, and vigorous genius. His powers of application 
were marvellous ; and, like a true Hannibal, there was 
no mountain of toil that he could not soften and disin- 
tegrate with the vinegar of his perseverance. But he 
was haughty, passionate, and vindictive ; prejudice had 
narrowed his extensive views, acrimony had soured his 
temper, and party spirit had repressed his imagination. 
His fame is associated most intimately in the estimation 
of posterity with his ' ' Divine Legation " — a masterly 
work, through every page of which his genius shines 
(to use the words of an eloquent critic) " like the rich 
sunshine of an Italian landscape." His object was to 
trace the mission of Moses to a divine origin, and thus, 
of course, to vindicate the elementary principles of the 



THE THISTLES OF LITER A TURE. 



327 



great Christian system. It was a noble task, and had he 
displayed a Christian spirit while engaged in it, our ad- 
miration would have been complete. But, alas ! he did 
not. He was insolent, overbearing, despotic, and pre- 
sented to the world as humiliating a spectacle as can 
be well imagined — that of a man, who, while professing 
to act as the champion of Christianity, was prepared 
upon any or no provocation to assail his fellow-creatures 
with a ferocity of invective that would have disgraced a 
Pagan. Mallet called him "the most impudent man 
living " (which he never could have been during Mallet's 
lifetime), and Churchill has denounced his arrogance in 
lines written rather with vitriol than ink : — 

" He is so proud that should he meet 
The twelve Apostles in the street, 
He'd turn his nose up at them all 
And shove St. Peter from the wall." 

Bishop Lowth was a profound and elegant scholar 
and a discriminative critic. He had no unkind feeling 
towards any human being, but in his " Prelections " he 
advanced a doctrine respecting the Book of Job, which 
Warburton considered as aimed at his own peculiar 
opinions. In vain did Lowth disclaim any such appli- 
cation. Warburton's wrath was unappeasable, and mark 
how he speaks of that critic, who, perhaps, of all then 
alive, had the most sensitive literary palate. " Lowth," 
he says, " can't distinguish partridge from horse-flesh — 
I shall hang him and his fellows as they do vermin in 
a warren, and leave them to posterity to stink and 
blacken in the wind." Lowth was as gentle as he was 
gifted, but this was a little too much for his philosophy, 
so he took up his pen and in a manly and spirited letter 



328 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

denounced Warburton " as a quack in commentatorship 
and a mountebank in criticism." Like Cato to Carthage, 
the Bishop of Gloucester returned to the charge, and 
poisoned his pen with such verdigris as this : " Though 
your teeth are short, what you want in length you have 
in venom, and know as all other creatures do where 
your strength lies." And so the battle waxed fiercer and 
fiercer, Lowth protesting with earnest dignity against 
the treatment he was receiving, and Warburton repelling 
his protestations with contempt and insolence. It was 
thus that he treated all who presumed to differ from him 
on any point, however trivial. " The Divine Legation " 
concluded, he applied himself to an edition of Shake- 
speare, which remains to our time an astonishing monu- 
ment of perverted ingenuity and abused erudition. Plain 
words are subtilized to the most remote conceits, and 
the simplest and most natural allusions of the great 
dramatist are made the vehicles of the most unheard of 
allegories. Such a work of course provoked criticism, 
and Dr. Johnson among others ventured to express dis- 
approval ; but the bishop pooh-poohed all objections, 
and consigned to infamy all objectors. " Of this John- 
son," he said contemptuously, in writing to Dr. Hurd, 
• " you and I, I believe, think alike." Dr. Gray's preface 
to Hudibras, a clever and scholarly production, he de- 
scribed as " an execrable heap of nonsense." Rousseau 
he stigmatized as a " madman," qualifying the phrase, 
however, by the strange prefix " seraphic," and Hyde 
he dismissed as a fellow who was " at the head of a 
rabble of lying orientalists." But the most fiery phial of 
his indignation was reserved for the learned and pious 
Dr. Stubbing, whom he politely designated as one — 



THE THISTLES OF LITERATURE. 329 

" Ungrateful to the generous man he grew by, 
A brazen, brainless, bloodless, bankrupt booby." 

Pope and Warburton were intimate friends, and it is 
to be feared that the poet's temper gained nothing in 
sweetness from the connection. Cumberland has said 
that " an author must not be thin-skinned, but shelled 
like a rhinoceros ; "—a fine sentiment truly for one 
whose own exquisite sensitiveness, as portrayed by- 
Sheridan in " Sir Fretful Plagiary," now constitutes his 
chief claim to immortality. Pope had certainly but lit- 
tle of the rhinoceros about him. He always had as many 
quarrels on his hands as with all his fertility of invective 
he could conveniently manage. And, indeed, it must 
be admitted that he received no ordinary provocation. 
Even Warburton, who was afterwards his constant asso- 
ciate, ridiculed him at first for the " poverty of his 
genius ! " and " every hound," says the elder Disraeli, 
" yelped in the halloo against his ' Homer.' " The 
mutual proximity of men of genius seems to produce a 
familiarity which excites hatred or contempt, while he 
who is affected with disordered passions imagines that 
he is establishing his own claims to genius by denying 
those of others. Lord Hervey, of Ickleworth, has been 
celebrated by Middleton as one who was remarkable 
for his good sense, his rigid temperance, his sterling . 
patriotism, and his consummate politeness. But Pope fell 
foul of him — probably for no better reason than that he 
was the supporter of Sir Robert Walpole — and, oh ! 
what a portrait of him has he transmitted to posterity. 

Never was there distilled such venom from the Eng- 
lish language as in drawing the character of Sporus. It 
is the concentrated essence of sublimated spite : — 



33° 



ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 



" Let Sporus tremble ! What ! that thing of silk, 
Sporus, that mere white curds of ass's milk. 
Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings — 
This painted child of dirt that stinks and stings." 

But it is unnecessary to quote the whole passage, for 
no doubt it is burnt with a pen of caustic into the 
memory of the reader. Colley Gibber was another 
writer of that day whose shadow had the misfortune to 
cross the path of Pope, who accordingly denounced him 
as a creature " with less human genius than God gives 
an ape." This was a savage sarcasm, but it had one 
defect — it was not true. Cibber was a man of brilliant 
talents, and we cannot but admire the calm dignity of 
his manly reply : — " Sir, satire without truth recoils upon 
its author, and must at other times render him suspected 
of prejudice even when he may be just." Had he said 
everything with equal temper, he would have deserved 
our utmost sympathy ; but his philosophy was not proof 
against such sore temptations, and he grew at last as 
vituperative as his assailant. We may imagine how the 
poet must have writhed in his arm-chair when his old 
servant, John Searl, entered the breakfast-room at 
Twickenham, and handed him a letter from Cibber, 
commencing thus : — " Everybody tells me that for a 
twelvemonth together I have made you feel as uneasy 
as a rat in a hot kettle." But Pope was the quarry of 
mightier hunters than Colley Cibber. Addison was the 
most illustrious of his enemies — Addison, whom Pope 
has held up to posterity as one who could 

" Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer ; 
Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike, 
Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike. 
* * # # 



THE THISTLES OF LITERATURE. 33 z 

Alike reserved to blame or to commend 
A timorous foe and a suspicious friend." 

All that is mean, unmanly, and contemptible is com- 
prised in such a character, and of the two it would, per- 
haps, be better for a man to be Sporus than Atticus. 
Addison was the aggressor, for he had talked of the 
" Homer " as an " ill-executed thing," and had calum- 
niated Pope to Lady Stuart Wortley Montague. But it 
sometimes happened that the poet gave the first offense. 
He certainly did so in the case of Leonard Walsted. 
Walsted was a man of elegant manners, fine fancy, and 
patrician family, and it is probable that his most familiar 
beverage was burgundy or tokay. But he wrote a poem, 
"Aqunippa," which Pope "misliked;" and mark how 
he invokes him : — " Flow, Walsted, flow, like thine 
inspirer, beer." Towards the close of his life defamers 
crowded round the bard. The great Mr. Dennis de- 
nounced his " Rape of the Lock " as " a mass of clotted 
nonsense." Mallet being asked if anything new had 
happened, replied that he had "looked over a thing 
called an 'Essay on Man,' but discovering an utter 
want of skill and knowledge in the author, he had 
thrown it aside ; " and to fill to overflowing the cup of 
his bitterness, the contemptible little bookseller, Mr. 
Curll, had the effrontery to assert at the bar of the House 
of Lords, that though Mr. Pope had " a knack of versi- 
fying, he (Mr. Curll) thought himself more than a match 
for him in prose." It would have been well had Pope's 
quarrels ended with his life ; but alas ! it was not so. 
His foes dishonored him even in his grave, and there is 
nothing in the history of literature more melancholy or 
more humiliating than Lord Bolingbroke's posthumous 
quarrel with the man who had celebrated him in immor- 



332 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

tal verse as his "guide, philosopher and friend." It 
seems as though Genius, which awakens the admiration 
of men in the aggregate, has in it something that evokes 
in an inveterate degree the hostility of the individual 
man. Of this we have — to quote one case from a mul- 
titude — a striking illustration in the torrent of abuse 
that was poured upon the scholars and philosophers 
who founded the Royal Society. Charles II. laughed in 
their faces even when he handed them their charter ; and 
their telescopes and optical instruments were ridiculed 
as engines of Popery. The Mud-fog Association was 
not more unmercifully quizzed. Stubbs denounced it 
as a " Hospital of Fools/' and, admitting that he was no 
great scholar himself, addressed its members as St. 
Francis saluted his only companions in the wilderness : 
" Salvete fratres asirn, salvete fratres lupi " — " Hail, 
brother jackasses, hail brother wolves." At a .later 
period a still more implacable enemy arose in the per- 
son of Sir John Hill, who, having been rejected because 
of his waspish temper by all the learned societies in 
succession, ridiculed them all with equal asperity. The 
Antiquarians were " medal scrapers " and " antediluvian 
knife-grinders ; " the Conchologists were " cockle-shell 
merchants ; " the Naturalists were " pedlars of prickle- 
backs and cock-chafers." Hill was a man of varied 
talents — there is no denying it — and of miraculous 
industry. His " Vegetable System," extending to twenty- 
six folios, and containing 16,000 plates, representing 
26,000 different figures from nature, is in itself a pyra- 
mid of his industry ; yet it does not comprise one- 
twentieth part of his labors. He wrote travels and his- 
tories, romances, sermons, pamphlets, plays, and poems ; 
in fact, he put his pen to every kind of writing, though 



THE THISTLES OF LITERATURE. 



333 



it is not quite so certain that he beautified all that he 
touched. His temper was intolerable, his vanity egre- 
gious, and in every fellow-creature he seems to have 
found an enemy. " Friendship passed him like a ship 
at sea." Fielding, punning on his name, called him " a 
paltry dung-hill ; " and Smart, whom he had called an 
" ass," devoted a long poem to him, " The Hilliard," in 
which he denounced him. as 

" A wretch devoid of use of sense and grace, 
The insolvent tenant of encumbered space." 

Garrick's happy lines on his double faculty of phy- 
sician and playwright are well known : — 

" For physic and farces his equal there scarce is, 
His farce is a physic, his physic a farce is." 

Some other wit, whom he had stigmatized as " a 
wooden-headed booby " assailed him in a similar 
manner : — 

" The worse that we wish thee for all thy vile crimes 
Is to take thine own physic and read thine own rhymes." 

Nor did it end here. Malice, like echo, caught up 
the perishing strain, and the last epigram was the best 
of the three — 

" No ! let the order be reversed, 

Or he'll not rue his crimes, 
For if he takes his physic first 

He'll never read his rhymes." 

A neat epigram, and poignant as any in the language ! 
The famous controversy between Boyle and Bentley 
about ^Esop's fables and the epistles of Phalaris illus- 
trates very remarkably the willingness of great men to 



334 



ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 



defame one another. To hear them talk you would 
really imagine that, instead of being scholars and gen- 
tlemen, they were idiots and cut-throats. We find Boyle 
calling Bentley " a dunce and a jackass," while Bentley 
compares Boyle with his new readings to " a bungling 
tinker mending old kettles." Then came the conflict 
between Bentley and Bishop Hare respecting the metre 
of Terence, a dispute which gave rise to the severe re- 
buke of Sir Isaac Newton that " two dignified divines, 
instead of minding their duties, had fallen out about a 
play-book." Yet Newton was no such philosopher 
when there was question of his own feelings, for so in- 
tolerant was he of criticism that Whiston assures us that 
the reason why he did n'ot publish his commentary on 
the ' Chronology ' during the lifetime of Sir Isaac was 
that " I knew his temper so well that I should have ex- 
pected a hostile review would have killed him." And 
so, perhaps, it would if it had been written in the fero- 
cious strain in which great men are wont to speak one 
of another. Parnassus, when the Parnassians fall out, 
is your true Billingsgate. Parker, Bishop of Oxford, 
described Marvell, the friend and associate of Milton, 
as "a vagabond, ragged, hungry poetaster, beaten in 
every tavern — a drunken merry-andrew." Milton him- 
self did not come off much better, for Waller, the poet, 
sneered at him as a il blind old school-master " whose 
' Paradise Lost ' had no merit " unless its extraordinary 
length be accounted as such." And Spratt, Bishop of 
Rochester, had such an antipathy to him that he or- 
dered his name to be erased from Phillips' epitaph " as 
a pollution to a Christian church." Davenant was 
hunted into his grave by the wits of his time. Burnet 
called Dryden " a monster of immodesty and impurity." 



THE THISTLES OF LITERATURE. $$$ 

Anthony Wood described the great John Locke as a 
man " who could only distinguish himself by prating 
and being troublesome." Luther called Henry VIII. a 
" pig, an ass, a dunghill, the spawn of an adder, a basi- 
lisk, a lying buffoon dressed in a king's robes, and a 
mad fool with a frothy mouth ! " and even said to him, 
" you lie, you stupid and sacreligious king." Madame 
de Stael said of the famous Thomas Hobbes that he 
was " a slave and an atheist." Bishop Fell described 
the same philosopher as " that most vain and waspish 
animal of Malmesbury," and Dr. Wallis could afford- 
him no more complimentary designation than that of a 
man who was " always writing what was answered be- 
fore he had written." Lord Chesterfield called Dr. 
Samuel Johnson a " Hottentot." Dr. Adam Smith de- 
scribed the same Dr. Samuel Johnson as "a brute." 
Dr. Samuel Johnson replied that Dr. Adam Smith was 
" a liar," and Dr. Adam Smith rejoined by tracing Dr. 
Samuel Johnson's genealogy to Hecuba — as the Queen 
of Troy is known to us subseque7itly to her transforma- 
tion. And there are the idols of posterity — the heirs of 
immortality, " the lamps, the stars, the magnets of our 
lives." Smollett paid a delicate compliment to Admiral 
Knowles. " He is an admiral without conduct, an en- 
gineer without knowledge, an officer without resolution, 
and a man without veracity." Swift talks of Walpole 
as " a contemptible boor," and hints with unmistakable 
distinctness that the Duke of Marlborough was a 
coward. Voltaire, in his letters from England, testifies 
to the prevalence of a similar opinion. " So violent 
did I find parties in London that I was assured by sev- 
eral that the Duke of Marlborough was a coward, and 
Mr. Pope a fool." Some sweet compliments passed 



336 ERRA TIC ESS A YS. 

between Dennis and Sir Richard Steele. After taunt- 
ing him with the atrocious offence of being an Irish- 
man, Dennis says of Steele that he is marked " like 
Cain," and that his Hibernian origin is "stamped upon 
his face, his writings, his actions, his passions, and, 
above all, his vanity." Steele replied that his assailant 
had an " ugly vinegar face " and " duck-legs made for 
carrying burdens," and that " he never let the sun into 
his garret for fear he should bring a bailiff along with 
him." Macklin called Garrick a "sheer impostor," 
and Quin, who could not endure that such a wrong 
should be done even to a rival, retorted that "villain " 
was written on every feature of Macklin's face. George 
III. had the meanest possible opinion of Chatham and 
Temple, and did not hesitate to express his aversion. 
" I cannot get rid of the scoundrels," he exclaimed ; 
•' and I do not consider myself a King while I am in 
their hands." Very touching and affectionate was what 
Queen Caroline said of her own child, the Prince or 
Wales. " I regard him," observed this exemplary 
mother, " as the greatest ass, the greatest liar, the 
greatest canaille, and the greatest beast in the world, 
and I heartily wish he was out of it." Poor wretch, he 
did not long encumber the earth, for he took an eternal 
adieu of it in 175 1. Chesterfield would not allow that 
Fox had " the least notion of or regard for the public 
good." Posterity is not altogether of the same opinion, 
but one " great " man must have his fling at another. 
Sir William Temple sneered at Harvey's doctrine of 
the circulation of the blood as " a thing which sense 
can hardly allow." Lord Bacon rejected Galileo's dis- 
coveries with scorn. Dr. Kenrick said of Goldsmith's 
* Traveller ' that it was a "flimsy poem," and of ' The 



THE THISTLES OF LITERATURE, 337 

Deserted Village ' that it had " neither fancy, dignity, 
genius, nor fire." The same spirit has survived to 
modern times. Mr. Carlyle politely assures us that 
Ignatius Loyola was " a ferocious human pig." Mr. 
Thackeray, who had an amiable weakness for digging 
people out of their graves and hanging them in chains, 
and who should have had few frailties of his own, so 
merciless was he to those of his fellow-creatures whether 
they were alive or dead, described Pope as " a pert, 
prurient little bard," and Swift " as a wretched worn- 
out scamp — a poor stricken wretch." Nor was he more 
gracious to John Wilkes. Dr. Alexander Chalmers as- 
sures us that Mr. Wilkes was " a gentleman of elegant 
manners, of fine tastes, and of pleasing conversation." 
Mr. Thackeray described him as a " blasphemous cock- 
eyed demagogue." Dr. Gilbert Stuart hallooed Dr. 
Henry through the world as "an ass and an idiot" 
(what would your great men do when talking of one an- 
other but for that word " ass " ?), and Southey could 
not afford to designate Napoleon otherwise than as the 
" bloody Corsican." Nor was the French Caesar more 
just, for he sneered at Wellington as " a Sepoy Cap- 
tain." Byron called Landor " a gander," Southey " an 
incarnate lie," Wordsworth "a footman," and Shake- 
speare himself " a humbug." But in this last instance, 
he did but steal the thunder of Voltaire, who character- 
ized the King of dramatists as " a buffoon and a bar- 
barian." 

Such is the tone in which great men have spoken of 
one another, and well, indeed, may we exclaim " Tantcs 
ne animis ccelestibus ira ! " — " Can heavenly minds such 
high resentment show ? " 



338 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 



THINGS THAT HAVE GONE OUT. 

T^ASHION is the veriest chamelon, exercising over 
our " habits," both sartorial and social, a sway so 
arbitrary and capricious as to defy all calculation. In 
customs, as in costumes, her empire is absolute, and the 
wisest among us have no alternative but to submit. So 
true is the old saying that one may as well be out of the 
world as out of the fashion. It is wonderful to think 
how rapidly the kaleidoscope of public taste changes. 
Things come in only to go out. We have ourselves our 
exits and our entrances, so also have our " institutions " 
and observances theirs. That which is " ton " to-day 
may be " bad form " to-morrow, and every new-fangled 
device, whether of dress or ceremony, which now be- 
guiles our fancy, to the exclusion of momentous matters, 
is but, " the perfume and suppliance of a minute." The 
wind passeth over it, and it is gone. We need not go 
back to remote days for illustrations of the mutability 
of manners and the evanescence of practices which were 
once held in the highest esteem. Everything has its 
day of bright glory, succeeded by a night of dark obliv- 
ion. This being so, it may not be uninteresting to 
take a retrospective glance, whether actual or ideal, at a 
few of those fashions which, though they enjoy great 
popularity at a date within easy range of memory, have 
either already disappeared, or are passing rapidly into 
disuse. 

What has become of the Snuff-takers ? Like the 



THINGS THAT HAVE GONE OUT 



339 



Quakers, they grow iewer and fewer each succeeding 
year, and the day may not be distant when both the 
Friends and the Snuffers shall have altogether vanished. 
Horace Smith is very severe on the subject of pulverized 
tobacco. " Snuff," he says, "is dirt thrust up the nos- 
trils with a pig-like snort, as at a sternutatory which 
is not to be sneezed at. The moment he has thus 
defeated his own object, the snuff-taker becomes the 
slave of a habit which literally brings his nose to the 
grindstone ; his Ormskirk has seized him as St. Dun- 
stan did the Devil, and if the red-hot pincers could 
occasionally start up from the midst of the rappee, few 
persons would regret their embracing the proboscis of 
the offender." Lord Stanhope has calculated very ex- 
actly that in forty years, two entire years of the snuff- 
taker's life will have been devoted to tickling his nose 
and two more to the delightful process of blowing it, 
with other incidental circumstances. "Well would it 
be," he adds philosophically, " if we bestow half the 
time in making ourselves agreeable that we waste in 
rendering ourselves offensive to our friends. Society 
takes its revenge by deciding that no man would thrust 
dirt into his head, if he had got anything else in it." 
This is very savagely said, and the sarcasm is, as the 
French would phrase it, sanglant, but the satire wants 
the poignancy of truth, seeing that many men of high 
intellect and profound scholarship have been addicted 
to the ungraceful habit which the satirist denounces 
with such severity. The reign of snuff was long and 
brilliant. It was probably at its zenith in the pictures- 
que days of powder and patches, when every fop in 
Covent Garden was, like Sir Plume, "of amber snuff-box 
justly vain, and the nice conduct of a clouded cane." 



340 



ERRATIC ESSAYS. 



Amber snuff-boxes and clouded canes in our age would 
be regarded as archaeological curiosities, for which vir- 
tuosos would vie emulously at Christie and Manson's. 
The style of costume had, no doubt, a sensible influence 
upon the personal habits of the wearers ; and a snuff- 
box, whether of amber or studded with brilliants, " went 
well," as the ladies say, with the general tenue of a man 
of fashion, a-blaze with jewelry, and clad in satin 
small-clothes, a coat of embroidered velvet, and ruffles 
of Mechlin lace. All his chattels and accessories were 
objects of watchful observation to his attendants, and 
Dean Swift, in his Advice to Servants,' did not fail to 
give sage counsel, which was doubtless occasionally 
turned to good account:— "If a gentleman leaveth a 
snuff-box on the table and goeth away, lock it up at 
once as part of your vails." Gorgeous " tabatieres " 
went out with effulgent apparel ; and when men took to 
broad-cloth, their snuff-boxes partook the - sombre hues 
of their garments. Now and then, indeed, a man of 
costly tastes would sport a gold or silver box, and prof- 
fer it courteously for a " pinch," to a stranger, a practice 
which broke the ice between them, and was an easy 
prelude to familiar discourse. Napoleon was an invet- 
erate snuffer, and the habit had another royal votary in 
the person of Queen Charlotte, who was won't to use a 
tiny golden bellows wherewith to blow the snuff up the 
nostrils, — a contrivance less graceful than ingenious. 
It is to be regretted that her snuffy majesty had not 
sufficient interest in fairyland to have secured the ser- 
vices of those dainty sprites whose achievements have 
been celebrated so melodiously by Pope, in The Rape 
of the Lock : — 



THINGS THAT HAVE GONE OUT. 34 r 

" Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew, 
A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw 
The gnomes direct, to every atom just, 
The pungent grains of titillating dust." 

It is worthy of remark that in proportion as the use 
of tobacco in the form of smoking has increased with 
us, it appears to have diminished in the shape of snuff- 
ing. The few snuffers who remain carefully eschew the 
sorts of " dust " which were in general favor some 
years ago, such as Scotch rappee and Irish "black- 
guard," going in only for those moist " messy " powders 
which have at least the negative advantage of not set- 
ting the people in the vicinity of the snuffer a-sneezing, 
as was customary when the dry snuffs were in vogue. 
But the days of snuffers, whether dry or moist, are num- 
bered. Even the Scotch Highlander, with snuff-horn in 
hand, now seldom stand in mimic guard at the shops of 
tobacconists ; and at no distant date a snuff-box will 
probably be as great a rarity as a pair of snuffers. And 
by the way that calls to mind that there is another kind 
of snuffing which has quite gone out — candle-snuffing. 
Its disappearance is to be regretted only because it has 
put an end to a venerable old riddle, — What snuff is 
that of which the more you take the more will be left in 
the box ? Candle-snuff to be sure. 

How seldom now-a-days one meets a man with a wig ! 
There was a time within the memory of people not yet 
old, when men in affluent circumstances no sooner found 
their hair getting thin on the top than they hied them as 
a matter of course to the perruquier and ordered a wig, 
or if not that, a scalp. The practice was one of respec- 
table antiquity, and was favored in bygone ages by can- 
ine as well as human heads, as appears clearly enough 



342 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

from the sublime poem commemorative of the affection- 
ate proceedings of Old Mother Hubbard in respect of 
her dog. Do we not read that 

" She went to the barber's to buy him a wig, 
And when she came back he was dancing a jig ? " 

Whether he put the wig on or not is a matter on 
which the poet has not vouchsafed to enlighten us, but 
in all probability he did. Be that as it may, wigs have 
now fallen into utter disesteem, both with dogs and 
their masters. The habit of wearing false hair appears 
to have grown odious to men, though not so to women, 
who never before used it to such an extent as at present 
You might walk from Putney to Poplar and back again 
without seeing a male head surmounted with an artificial 
coiffure. In fact, we men are now in pretty much the 
same condition as the wigless pig whom an anonymous 
traveller famed in nursery legend encountered on his 
way to Stonor, — 

" Upon my word of honor, 
As I was going to Stonor, 
I met a pig without a wig, — 
Upon my word of honor ! " 

One cannot help wondering that a gentleman, doubtless 
of unsullied reputation, should have deemed it neces- 
sary to pledge his honor twice so vehemently in authen- 
tication of so exceedingly credible a statement. Were 
he now alive, he would find as many unwigged men as 
pigs at Stonor, and indeed anywhere else in England, 
for the matter of that. Official wigs survive now upon 
the Bench and at the Bar, and there alone, unless, in- 
deed, we take into account the wigged coachmen whom 



THINGS THAT HAVE GONE OUT 343 

one comes across now and then in Hyde Park or 
Regent Street during the London season. 

Formerly, the Bishops used to wear wigs, and a pleas- 
ant joke upon the subject is preserved in the amber of 
Curran's wit. (i Is there anything strange in this wig 
of mine, Mr. Curran?" asked a conceited prelate. 
" Nothing but the head, my lord," replied the brilliant 
orator. It is sad to think that fashions cannot go out 
without taking with them the pleasant sayings they 
suggested. The wigs of barristers were formerly manu- 
factured of human hair profusely powdered, and it was 
an old reproach against a briefless advocate that he 
did not earn enough to powder his wig withal. The 
legal perruque is now unpowdered, and made not only 
of tow and horsehair, but also in some degree of pigs' 
bristles, so that a barrister who stands out obstinately 
for his client may be said to be pig-headed in more 
senses than one. (Attorneys using this pun without 
the author's permission will be prosecuted.) 

It is satisfactory to observe that though ladies still 
affect the things called "pads," and wear other wo- 
men's hair in unprecedented abundance, the hideous 
" chignon " has gone out. Let us hope that neither it 
nor the still more horrible " crinoline " will ever again 
be permitted to disfigure Englishwomen, by the consent 
of all nations under the sun the most beautiful women 
in the world. It is also a matter of felicitation that the 
mustard-headed ladies one used to meet so frequently 
a year or two ago are becoming much rarer. We might 
well dispense with them altogether, for surely it can- 
not be supposed that the flesh-tints, whether of a 
" blonde " or of a brunette, were ever meant by Nature 
to be associated with the yellow plumage of a canary. 



344 



ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 



Male attire undergoes but little improvement. Men 
seemed doomed to wear for ever the same cut of clothes, 
and the chimney-pot hat will probably disappear with 
the male head, but not before. That consummation, 
however, may come at no distant date, for men are 
among the things that are going out, while women, 
heaven be thanked ! grow more numerous every day. 
Still we have the benefit of some minor modifications 
of costume, which contribute to our comfort, and for 
which we are therefore bound to be grateful. Fore- 
most among these small reforms must be ranked the 
abolition of straps, stocks, and those villanous stand- 
up shirt collars, with which in by-gone times our ears 
were in continual danger of being sawed off. I was 
shocked to see a man with strapped trousers in Hayling 
Island some weeks ago, as I told you at the time ; and 
once in a blue moon one encounters a gentleman with 
a stock, precisely similar to that still to be seen round 
the throat of a waxen figure in a shop opposite Day & 
Martin's blacking manufactory in Holborn ; but the 
stand-up collar is still patronized by Mr. Gladstone 
and, in all probability, by him alone of living English- 
men. Surely, if a deputation from the wives and 
daughters of his Greenwich constituents were to wait 
upon him, and with tears in their eyes to entreat him to 
discard an article so injurious to his good-looks, he 
could not find it in his heart to refuse. One Quaker in a 
drab suit and a broad-brim, which neither Fox nor Bar- 
clay need have disdained to wear, may still be seen 
sauntering about Lothbury and Lombard Street ; and a 
hatter on Tower Hill assured me the other, day that 
there is a wealthy old merchant in Tower street who to 
this day wears a beaver hat, a blue body-coat, with 
brass buttons, and a buff waistcoat. 



THINGS THAT HAVE GONE OUT. 



345 



Shaving is going out gradually. The sooner it goes 
out altogether the better, for no more nonsensical or 
more injurious practice ever prevailed in a. civilized 
country. " Zelim," says Lord Bacon, " was the first of 
the Ottomans that did shave his beard. A Bashaw 
asked him why he had altered the custom of Ms prede- 
cessors. He answered, ' Because you Bashaws may not 
lead me by the beard, as you did them.' " Zelim was some 
thing of a philosopher, and a trifle of a wag, but his logic, 
however pertinent in Turkey, has no force in England, 
where men would never suffer themselves to be led by 
their beards, though these beards were to grow to their 
waists. The day will assuredly come when posterity will 
stand aghast at the thought that their male ancestors 
could ever have been such simpletons as to take a sharp 
knife in their hands once every four-and-twenty hours 
and submit themselves to a tedious and painful opera- 
tion, and all for what ? — to make their faces look like 
the faces of women. A beard was given to a man at 
once for an ornament and a protection, — decus atque tu- 
tamen. To take it off were about as reasonable as to 
cut the mane off a lion, — a profitless and perilous experi- 
ment. But shaving is the last lingering remnant of the 
old cropping system, once prevalent from one end of 
the country to the other. Horses' tails, dogs' ears, and 
men's beards were alike remorselessly cropped, with- 
the effect of disfiguring all three animals in a manner 
horrible to contemplate. 

From horses to husbands the transition is possibly 
not very honorable to the former. The bearing-rein is 
going out, a fact which calls to mind my encounter with 
Mr. Beebumble the other day. I met him in Richmond 
Park, with a face as long as a fiddle. " Bless my heart, 



346 ERRA TIC ESSA VS. 

Beebumble," I exclaimed, " what is the matter ? " 
" Ah ! " he replied, and so replying he made me cry, as 
you know he always does, by the force with which he 
wrings my hand, " Mrs. Beebumble has abolished the 
horse's bearing-rein. "And a good thing, too," I rejoin- 
ed ; "give the poor brute his head." "Ah lyes, my 
boy," he sighed, " that's all right enough, but when will 
she abolish my bearing-rein ? When is a husband to 
have his head ? " I was unable to answer. 



RINKING. 

HHHE fascination which wheels possess for the human 
imagination is assuredly one of the most wonder- 
ful mysteries of our nature ; yet strange to say, it would 
seem to have escaped the notice of philosophers, ancient 
and modern. Neither Tacitus nor Tupper has made 
the faintest allusion to it ; Mill, Carlyle, and Darwin, 
are alike silent upon the subject, but not so the poets. 
Poetry abounds in metaphorical references to this most 
marvellous affinity. We are all familiar with the wheel 
of fortune, and everybody knows that our life is a curi- 
ous contrivance of wheels within wheels. We are, to 
speak figuratively, dragged at the chariot-wheels of 
Fashion, Love, or Beauty, as the case may be ; and full 
many an ambitious man is, to use Dryden's simile, crush- 
ed " like the gasping charioteer beneath the wheel of 
his own car." " In the contemplation of our destinies," 
writes Lord Bacon, " look not too long upon the turning 
wheels of Vicissitude, lest we become giddy." Very 
pretty, too, is Pope's description of the flight of Mer- 
cury: — 



RINKING. 

" Then, wheeling down the steep of heaven he flies, 
And draws a radiant circle o'er the skies." 



347 



Milton also turns the wheel to good poetical purpose 
in many a melodious verse, and to quote his own words, 
" He throws his flight in many an airy wheel." Very 
potent and dictatorial is the phrase as used by Shake- 
speare, — " And you, my myrmidons, mark what I say ! 
Attend me where I wheel," an adjuration which would 
serve well for a motto upon a skating-rink. Now and 
then the moralist presses the metaphor into his service, 
as in Dr. South's consolatory meditation : — " According 
to the common vicissitude and wheel of things, the 
proud and the insolent, after long trampling upon others, 
come at length to be trampled upon themselves," which, 
by the way, is very right and proper, and altogether 
consonant with that law of compensation or retribution 
which one loves to observe, as well in the moral as in 
the material world. 

These purely metaphorical uses of wheels do but give 
fanciful illustration to the physical sense of joy which 
wheels, and whatsoever runneth upon them, appear to 
create within us. Who has not remarked with satisfac- 
tion the radiant glee of the poor man's little child who 
may be trundled along the street in a wagon extempor- 
ized out of an old box, and with wheels of thrice the 
diameter of a crown-piece ? Analyze in a philosophic 
spirit that child's delight, and you shall find that it is 
identical in its origin, though not in its concomitants, 
with the pleasure which a lady derives from riding 
through Hyde Park or along Regent Street in her sump- 
tuous brougham. 

" Through the proud street she moves, the public gaze j 
The turning wheel before the palace stays." 



348 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

Cowley paints a pleasant picture of a lady in her car- 
riage : — 

" Where never yet did pry 
The busy morning's curious eye, 
The wheels of thy bold coach pass quick and free, 
And all's an open road to thee." 

There is manifestly, for young and old, for gentle and 
simple, something exhiliarating and delightful in rotary 
movement. Hence the pleasure one finds not only in 
riding on, but even in gazing at, the spruce equipages of 
the Four-in-hand Club in Rotten Row, and the splendid 
coaches which dash off in such gallant style from the 
White Horse Cellars in Piccadilly. Hence, too, in a 
great measure is drawn the satisfaction one experiences 
in travelling by express train. For lookers-on also there 
is a strange fascination in the very sight of the wheels 
whirling round upon the axles with dazzling celerity. 
It is nice to be rolled even in a wheelbarrow ; how much 
nicer must it be to take your ease in a Pullman car, 
while you speed along at the rate of a mile a minute or 
so ! To the same wonderful predilection for wheels and 
wheeling, or being wheeled, is to be ascribed the joy that 
some people find in gliding swiftly upon a bycicle, at 
the imminent risk of breaking their necks, — imteciles d 
deux roues ! 

The rink mania is the newest and certainly not the 
least singular development of that rage for wheels which 
is unquestionably one of the strangest and strongest 
passions of the human heart. A superficial visitor, un- 
versed in the ways of philosophy, and unobservant of 
the curious springs of action animating human heads 
and heels, might, on entering a rink for the first time, 



RINKING. 349 

find it no easy matter to understand why so many of 
his fellow-creatures, mercifully qualified by nature to 
move safely and pleasantly upon the soles of their feet, 
should prefer to run about upon castors, like tables and 
chairs. Such a reflection, however, could only redound 
to the discredit of the shallow brain from which it ema- 
nated, the connection between wheels and humanity 
being, as already shown, as old as the hills, or, indeed, 
" as the valleys either, for the matter of that. Kinking is 
a graceful and brilliant accomplishment, which, based 
upon an irresistible instinct of our being, tends to ele- 
vate and refine all who do not lose either life or limb 
while engaged in the acquisition of it. Moreover, it 
may be said of it with perfect propriety that it gives 
softness and tenderness to the manners, making the 
votaries of the art benignly considerate of the comfort 
and convenience of their fellow-creatures. A Rink is 
the very palace of courtesy, and it is as wonderful as edi- 
fying to observe how polite people are to one another 
within the precincts of its magical circle. Emollit mores. 
That spiteful satisfaction at the disasters of their neigh- 
bors from which the best-conducted persons are not 
wholly free, in other places, appears to be quite un- 
known to the habitues of the Rink. Companionship in 
danger teaches mutual forbearance,' and quells so effec- 
tually the dictates of ill-nature, that not a sneer distorts 
the faces of any of his or her associates, nor does one 
word of inhuman jubilation escape from their lips when 
a Rinker comes to grief. Nobody laughs, nobody jeers, 
everybody runs to his or her assistance, and everybody 
seems sorry for him or her, as the case may be. I saw 
a very fat gentleman come a fearful " cropper" the other 
day. Swift as meditation or the thoughts of love, I 



35° 



ERR A TIC ESS A YS 



sped to his aid, and I have no doubt that I should have 
rendered him essential service, had it not been that in try- 
ing to get at him, I tumbled heels over head myself, and 
have never been to say altogether right in my mind since. 
Some delightful writer has remarked that so evanes- 
cent are the conditions of our earthly pilgrimage, that 
" a smile and a clasp of the hand as we pass," is the 
most we can hope to have of one another here below. 
Nowhere are these sad words truer than at a Skating- 
rink. It is touch-and-go with every one. If you mean 
to propose for a young lady in a rink, you would do well 
to come to the point as expeditiously as possible, while 
you and she are still able to maintain a perpendicular 
attitude. " Before I am run away with by my feelings, 
allow me to inquire, my dear young lady, what is your 
fortune ? " So speaks a very prudent and pious parson 
in one of Miss Austen's novels. For " feelings " read 
" castors," and the question may be recommended for 
the use of sentimental swains, making love in Mr. 
Plimpton's skates. It is delightful to ' observe what 
flirtation goes on in these places, and how successful 
young people seem to be in rinking into one another's 
affections. Very touching, too, is it to remark how 
gallantly solicitous are the young men for the safety of 
the young women, even when both are moving at a quiet 
pace, and with an ease and confidence which forbids the 
thought of peril. On such occasions it is no uncom- 
mon thing to see a male arm encircling a female 
waist, with an air of anxiety and a tenacity of pressure 
apparently in excess of the necessity, but still enchant- 
ing to behold. We sometimes witness the same sort 
of thing upon real ice, when it may be said with perfect 
truth of the skaters, 



RINKING. 

" Nimbly, gayly, off they go, 
With sport above and deat h below ; 



351 



but I really do- think that all that is noble, generous, 
and intrepid in the male heart comes out in still more 
captivating colors in the Rink, the devotion of the male 
to the female sex being there worthy of the best 
days of chivalry. There is another consideration 
which ought to recommend rinking to the cordial ap- 
proval of all thoughtful and benevolent persons, — I 
mean the service it cannot fail to render to surgical art. 
This is in itself a matter of primary importance. When 
rinkers, familiar with danger, and therefore contemptu- 
ous of it, shall grow even more reckless in their proceed- 
ings than they are at present, the number of sprained 
wrists, dislocated ankles, broken legs and arms, and 
smashed heads will become so great, that a staff of 
surgeons will have to be in constant attendance at every 
Rink. The profession will thus gain very considerably, 
not alone in a pecuniary sense, but also in opportunities 
of practice, for it stands to reason that if people did not 
break their limbs, surgeons would never know how to 
set them. For one good male rinker there at least forty 
female. The men are often as awkward as they are 
inelegant, and so come frequently to confusion ; where- 
as the women are, generally speaking, so prudent and 
skilful, as well as graceful, that they rarely give occasion 
for the doctor's intervention. Thus in this, as in all 
other matters, the advantage is where it ought to be, — 
with the better and more beautiful section of humanity. 
Another admirable thing about rinking is that it 
quickens the pulses of poetic inspiration. I was at a 
rink the other day, and all of a sudden such an afflatus, 
direct from the sunniest eminences of Parnassus, came 



35 2 



ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 



over me, that I asked Mr. Hayes, the courteous pro- 
prietor, to oblige me with writing materials. He did so, 
with characteristic politeness. Nay, more, he spread 
a round table for me right in the middle of the rink, 
whereat he placed a chair. I sat me down, and while 
the skaters were spinning around me on all sides in 
frantic mazes, I produced the following sublime 

Song of the Rinkers. 



Hearken to the Rinkers rolling round the rink ; 

How their axles clatter ! how their castors clink ! 

Wheeling in a giddy maze, darting in and out, 

They're " circular " and " fugitive " beyond the range of doubt 

Chorus. 

Sing a song of Rinkers, how merrily they skim ! 
Birds were made for flying, and fish were made to swim j 
Now we've found the motion fit for human kind, — 
Man to roll on castors only was designed. 



Here and there and everywhere, in and out they dash, 
Rinking's most delightful when there comes a crash ; 
Sympathy is catching : when Fanny's boot's unlaced, 
Willie's arm encircles his Arabella's waist. 

Chorus. — Sing a song of Rinkers, etc. 



Gliding o'er the asphalte at a furious rate, 
Taking it for ice, too, fancying they skate ! 
With each other flirting, waggishly they wink ; 
Oh, the rosy rinkers rolling round the rink ! 

Chorus. — Sing a song of Rinkers, etc. 



THE POETRY OF SLEEP. 



In the day of danger, when the clouds arise, 
Darkening all your sunshine, shrouding all your skies, 
Never take to weeping, never pause to think, 
Buckle on your castors, and begin to rink. * 

Chorus. — Sing a song of Rinkers, etc. 



353 



THE POETRY OF SLEEP. 

i i T WOULD go fifty miles on foot, for I have not a 
horse worth riding on, to kiss the hand of that 
man whose generous heart will give up the reins of his 
imagination into his author hands — be pleased he knows 
not why and cares not wherefore." So spake Lawrence 
Sterne ; and knowing thee, reader, to be just such a 
man as he thus eloquently depicts, I kiss thy dear hand, 
and taking it in mine, propose that we shall have an 
" out and about " in dreamland, chatting cosily as we 
go, on a subject the most attractive in the world — Sleep. 
All that the human fancy can conceive of refreshing 
and delightful is assuredly comprised in that gentle 
monosyllable. Dr. Johnson's definition is sufficiently 
seductive. " To Sleep — to take rest by the suspension 
of the mental and corporal powers." What can be more 
delicious ? Poets in all ages have sung the praises of 
sleep ; but of all panegyrics ever uttered on the en- 
chanting theme, the most truthful and striking is pro- 
bably that which fell from the inspired lips of Sancho 
Panza : — " Now blessings light on him who first in- 
vented sleep !" It covers a man all over, thoughts and 
2 3 



354 



ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 



all, like a cloak. It is meat for the hungry, drink for 
the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot." 
So, indeed, it is ; and he who possesses it to the fullest 
in the night is to be envied, however bleak and rough 
his journey may have been in the day. And if that 
man be worthy of universal benediction, as unquestion- 
ably he is, who " invented " sleep, surely he who gives 
to that exquisite discovery the utmost possible develop- 
ment is also to be esteemed a benefactor of his race. 
He may not, indeed, lay claim to the honors of origin- 
ality, but he deserves such secondary praise as fairly 
belongs to those ingenious and philanthropic minds 
which are modestly content to elaborate to finer perfec- 
tion and make more easy of operation the projects of 
inventive genius. In that happy thought I find supreme 
comfort. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to 
know that these essays of mine are soporific in their 
effect — that they have an irresistible tendency to pro- 
duce sleep, and so to procure for the reader the very 
highest form of enjoyment of which human nature is 
capable. Some pens there are which stir the spirit of 
man like trumpets ; some pens may be compared to 
swords, slaying right and left and flashing dazzlingly in 
the sunshine ; others may be likened to reeds which 
shed music ; mine has but one parallel — the sleep- 
compelling word of Somnus. What is the use of excit- 
ing people ? what possible good can come of writing in 
such a strain and style that men's cheeks flush to a 
more crimson dye, and their hearts beat more rapidly, 
and their pulses throb more wildly as they read ? As 
though there were not enough to distract and worry 
them in their experiences of every-day life ! Be it mine 
to soothe them into serene repose, and gently to beguile 



THE POE TR Y OF SLEEP. 355 

them into such sweet oblivion of sorrow as it is in the 
power of sleep, and of sleep alone, to bestow. The proud- 
est and happiest moment of my life is when I see a man 
take up a book of mine and set himself down to a 
perusal of it. Full well I know that " not poppy nor 
mandragora nor all the drowsy syrups of the world " 
can ever medicine him to such sweet sleep as is now in 
store for him. Being of a benevolent disposition, to 
administer to the felicity of my fellow creature is ever 
my chief delight. And what a glorious opportunity now 
presents itself ! Placing myself in a position where I 
may see without being seen, it is my practice to mark 
with breathless attention the working of my spell upon 
my unsuspecting reader ; to observe how " the exposi- 
tion of sleep," as Bottom phrases it, comes gradually 
over him ; to see his muscles insensibly relaxing, his 
eyelids drooping, his head nodding as he reads, till at 
last he sinks back unconsciously in his chair, the volume 
drops from his hands, and the voice or rather the nose 
of the snorer resounds jubilantly through the room. The 
delightful thought that I have made a human being 
supremely blest, banished his cares, and transported him 
by the magic of my writing to an ideal world, where he 
may smile to think of the grief in this, fills me with tri- 
umphant joy. All the way home I keep repeating these 
lines of Ovid to the unspeakable amazement of the 
passers-by, who little dream what noble transport swells 
my breast : — 

" Somne quies rerum, placidissime somne deorum, 
Pax animi, quem cura fugit, qui corpora diurnis 
Fessa ministeriis mulces, reparasque labori." 

Sleepless myself, I write that you may sleep, and so, 
dear reader, I acquire an undeniable title to your grat- 



356 ERR A TIC ESS A VS. 

itude and admiration. I have always been of opinion 
that there are in poetic literature two personages who 
receive at the hands of society treatment the very reverse 
of that to which they are justly entitled. They were 
both called into creation by Dr. Isaac Watts. The one 
is the little busy bee, whom we are exhorted from earli- 
est infancy to admire, forgetful of his horrid buzz and 
his bitter sting, and his felonious conduct in perpetually 
stealing the honey from the flowers ; the other is the 
sluggard, who, if he do no good, at all events does no 
harm, but who, nevertheless, is invariably held up as an 
object of hatred and derision. 

" Tis the voice of the sluggard, I heard him complain 
You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again." 

Certainly ! By all means ? Why not ? Why should 
he not slumber again ? Why was he waked too soon ? 
Why should any man be waked too soon ? or waked at 
all for the matter of that ! Every man is entitled to 
his due measure of sleep, and nothing can be more 
unfair than to bully a fellow out of this delicious heri- 
tage. To rob a poor man of his beer is bad enough ; 
to rob him of his sleep is still worse ; and to turn him 
into ridicule because he " complains " of such treatment 
is to add insult to injury. Of all the inhuman contrivan- 
ces ever invented by the wicked ingenuity of man for 
his own discomfort and that of his fellow-creatures, the 
most inhuman was that horrid bed exhibited some years 
ago at the first great bazaar in Hyde Park, and which 
was so constructed that at five o'clock in the morning 
it chucked the sleeper out of the mattrass right into the 
middle of the floor. The only parallel for this atrocious 
invention was perhaps that designed by the learned 



THE FOE TR Y OF SLEEP. 357 

Mrs. Carter, which was so adjusted in its devilish me- 
chanism that at a certain hour it set light to a string to 
which a heavy weight was suspended, which then fell 
with a strong sudden noise. " This," said Dr. Johnson, 
" roused her from her sleep, and then she had no diffi- 
culty in getting up." The woman who could manufac- 
ture such an instrument would eat her own children like 
Saturn. Sleep is in truth our most precious right, our 
sweetest prerogative, and it is precious and sweet in the 
precise, proportion that life is charged with sorrows and 
solicitudes, which would be intolerable but for the soft 
repose and mild nepenthe of periodic slumber. The 
most blissful reminiscence of youth is the memory of 
its sleep — sleep not fragmentary or uneasy, subject to no 
painful vision or distressing dream, but sleep worthy of 
the name, hearty, continuous, profound, and chequered 
only by such sweet and gentle revelations of some bet- 
ter world as give to slumber a divine zest, a tranquil 
holy joy unknown in after years, even to the most blame- 
less lives. The sleep of infancy is a heavenly trance, 
delightful to behold. What serenity is there on the brow 
of a sleeping infant ! what suavity of expression is there 
about the mouth ! and how peaceful and regular is the 
heaving of the tiny breast. In the world of external 
nature the most exact analogies for the ecstatic repose 
of childhood are, perhaps, the throbless tide of a sum- 
mer sea in southern latitudes, the stillness of an autum- 
nal wood when the winds are hushed and the aspens 
cease to quiver, or the meek waveless glow of moon- 
light on a bank. "How sweet the moonlight sleeps 
upon this bank ! " says Shakespeare with matchless grace 
of diction. There is high poetic beauty in. the notion — 
let us not call it superstition — that the smile of a sleep- 



358 ERRATIC ESSAYS. 

ing infant is the child's response to the whispering of an 
angel. Boys and girls go in for sleep with a will and 
enjoy it keenly. Oh ! for the glorious days, or rather 
nights, when to go to bed meant of necessity to go to sleep, 
and when no sooner had the golden-tressed head touch- 
ed the pillow than the little votary of Morpheus was 
wrapped in Elysian repose. Sleep such as this is the 
special privilege of youth, and rarely comes to us in our 
mature years. One of many arguments in favor of a 
country life is that it is eminently conducive to good 
sleep. Open air exercise, whether obtained through 
the instrumentality of manual toil or in pursuit of field 
sports, produces sleep sounder and more genuine than 
usually falls to the lot of the harassed denizens of great 
towns. What with hard labor and hard pleasure, worry 
everlasting and endless anxiety, and all the bother, poth- 
er, uproar and annoyance that the fiend "Business'! 
brings in his train, to say nothing of the row in the streets 
and the tumult and turbulence raging on all hands, the 
wonder is that the majority of Londoners are able to sleep 
at all. For six days in the week the world jogs along at 
a drowsy pace in the country, and on the seventh day 
the village parson — purveyor-general of sleep for the 
whole parish — gets into his pulpit and scatters sleep 
right and left throughout his rural flock. Very pungent, 
indeed, was the remark of the old Scotchwoman, who, 
when advised by her minister to take snuff with her to 
keep her awake in kirk while he was preaching, replied 
" Why dinna you put the snuff in the sermon, mon ? " 
Happily for his congregation he had no " snuff," to put 
in, so he followed his own hum-drum course and still as 
ever sent his hearers away invigorated with a more de- 
lightful form of refreshment than it is in the power of 



THE POE TR Y OF SLEEP. 359 

the most impassioned orator to bestow. One of the 
most poetic accompaniments of sleep is snoring, a 
graceful and melodious art of which, strange to say, 
most people are ashamed. I know a man who snores 
much better than he sings, yet he is much prouder of 
the latter than of the former accomplishment. His wife 
has invented an exquisite little apparatus for his special 
use. At the base of each nostril is fastened a perfor- 
ated ivory plate to which is affixed an India-rubber tube 
terminating in an ivory pipe. This pipe is placed in 
the mouth of the snorer, who thus consumes his own 
snores. 

It is interesting to observe what a potent effect the 
theme " Sleep " has in brightening and accelerating po- 
etic thought. The moment a poet begins to write upon 
this drowsy matter he waxes eloquent. Edward Young, 
a very unequal writer on general subjects, is uniformly 
sublime when he treats of sleep. No sooner does he 
touch on this ambrosial topic than he reaches at a bound 
something like Shakespearian splendor of imagination. 
His thoughts acquire new brilliancy, and his language 
grows prismatic. How fine in fancy and how exquisite 
in expression are these lines : — 

" Night, sable goddess, from her ebon throne, 
In rayless majesty now stretches forth 
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world." 

Shakespeare himself is never more magnificent than in 
speaking on this question. Some of his grandest pas- 
sages relate to it. What can be more touching than 
the lamentation of Macbeth that, in having committed 
a dread crime, he had forfeited for evermore his right 
to sleep : — 



360 ERR A TIC ESS A YS. 

" Methought I heard a voice cry ' Sleep no more . 
Macbeth does murder sleep ' — the innocent sleep, 
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care, 
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath ; 
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, 
Chief nourisher in life's feast." 

In striking contrast with this mournful meditation 
upon his own lot, is the murderer's allusion to the peace 
enjoyed by his victim, Duncan, in the grave. " After 
life's fitful fever he sleeps well." Not less tender is 
King Henry's famous adjuration to sleep. Never 
surely, was reproach couched in language more poig- 
nantly pathetic : — 

" Sleep, gentle sleep, 
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee„ 
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, 
And steep my senses in forgetfulness ? 
O, thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile 
In loathsome beds ; and leavest the kingly couch. 
A watch-case, or a common 'larum bell ? 
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast 
Seal up the ship boy's eyes, and rock his brains 
In cradle of the rude imperious surge ; 
And in the visitation of the winds, 
Who take the ruffian billows by the top, 
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them 
With deafening clamours in the slippery cloud, 
That, with the hurly, death itself awak es ? 
Canst thou, O partial sleep ! give thy repose 
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude ; 
And in the calmest and most stillest night 
Deny it to a king ? " 

The marvellous similitude of life itself to a vision 
and of death to sleep, is a thought which appears to 
have possessed a peculiar fascination for all poets, but 



THE POETRY OF SLEEP. 3 6 1 

more particularly for Shakespere, whom it always prompts 
to utterances 0/ more than ordinary sublimity. With 
this sublimity is mingled a touch of simple pathos which 
strikes home to every heart; as, for example, in the 
saying, " Tired we sleep, and life's poor play is o'er ! " 
And in that saddest, most tragic, of all reflections, " We 
are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life 
is rounded with a sleep." Coleridge rises to a strain of 
antique eloquence in discoursing about sleep, and of all 
stanzas in " The Ancient Mariner," probably the most 
melodious is this : — 

" Oh, sleep it is a gentle thing, 
Beloved from pole to pole ; 
To Mary Queen the praise be given, 
She sent the blessed sleep from heaven 
That slid into my soul." 

What quaint significance there is in that old preterite 
" slid," and how happily does the word express the soft 
and noiseless access of slumber! Among contempo- 
raneous bards Longfellow excels in allusions to sleep. 
There are few passages prettier or more pathetic than 
the following : — 

" Oh, holy Sleep, from thee I learn to bear 
What men have borne before ; 
Thou layst thy finger on the lips of care 
And they complain no more ! " 

Against this placid, comfortable meditation may be 
set Young's passionate complaint, that Sleep, 

" Like the world her ready visit pays 
Where Fortune smiles ; the wretched she forsakes. 
Swift on her downy pinion flies from care 
And lights on lids unsullied by a tear." 



362 ERRATIC ESSAYS. 

It is to be feared that the experience of the grief- 
stricken is in favor of this view of the .case, and that 
Sleep and Sorrow are but rarely found in the same bed. 
Anyhow, there is a placid charm in Longfellow's theory, 
and but that allegory is dead and realism has well-nigh 
killed the poetic and imaginative in art, his verse might 
serve for the text of a fine picture. In classic litera- 
ture, rich as it is in tender sentiments respecting death 
and its counterfeit — sleep — I do not remember to have 
found anything more beautiful than this saying of a 
Greek poet : " Wrapped in a heavenly slumber, O say 
not the good can die ! " A great volume might be filled 
with the sayings of bards— ancient and mode'rn — about 
sleep ; but of all words ever penned on the subject, the 
most sublime are assuredly those of King David—" He 
giveth His beloved sleep," a thought of such ineffable 
beauty and eloquence, so rich in celestial significance and 
consolatory assurance, that there is no going beyond it. 



708 

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his way into a position of honorable independence, and who v/as among the first to rally round 
the flag when the day of his country's peril came. There is a sound, manly tone about the 
book, a freedom from namby-pambyism, worthy of all commendation." — Sunday Sclwol Times. 

" One of the best of stories for boys." — Hartford Courant, 

" Carleton," (C. C. Coffin's) Writings. 

OUR NEW WAY ROUND THE WORLD : Where to Go, and 
What to See. 8vo. 550 pages. With several Maps, and over 100 
Engravings. Cloth $2.50. Popular edition, paper $1.00, cloth $1.50. 

". A more delightful book of travels has not in a long time fallen into our hands. There is 
not a dry line in it. He saw only what was worth seeing. What he says is worth saying, 
and he says it naturally and freshly ; one is only sorry to get to the end."— New York 
Christian A dvocate. 



TALES OF THE ST. LAWRENCE. By G. C. Chapin. 1 vol. 
Crown 8vo. Cloth. $1.50. 

THE BUTTERFLY HUNTERS. By Mrs. H. S. Connant. 1 
vol. Square i6mo., 175 pages. Illustrated. 

" A very handsome and instructive book for the young, with carefully drawn illustra- 
tions, which add greatly to its attractiveness." — New York Evangelist. 

WILLIE WINKIE'S NURSERY RHYMES OF SCOTLAND. 

With Frontispiece by Billings. 1 vol. i6mo. 100 pages. $1.25. 

This has been pronounced the most elegant juvenile ever published 
in America. The ornamentation is profuse, and in the highest style 
of art ; while the songs have all the pathos and pleasantry of the 
Scotch bard- 



RECENT PUB LIC A TIONS AND RE-ISSUES. 



Henry Kingsley's Writings. 

" Mr- Henry Kingsley is to be welcomed among the masters of modern fiction. ' Ravens- 
hoe ' gives him place with Thackeray, Charles Kingsley, Dickens, and Mrs. Stowe. The 
book is one of great power." — Hartford Press. 

THE RECOLLECTIONS OF GEOFFRY HAMLYN. i vol. 

.-, i2mo., 538 pages. 

" It is fresh, breezy, healthy, straightforward, free from nonsense, full of the most delightful 
descriptive passages, yet with no long digressions, dramatic, warlike, adventurous, tender at 
times ; indispensable and omnipresent love not being neglected, while the friendships formed 
in the Australian deserts are admirably described. . . The whole book, in fine, is admirable." 
—Springfield Republican. 

RAVENSHOE. 1 vol. i2mo., 434 pages. $1.75. 
AUSTIN ELLIOT. 1 vol. i2mo., 360 pages. $1.75. 

" ' Austin Elliot ' is a novel such as is not found every day in this novel writing age. It is 
real, genuine. Its characters are live persons, who act as people do in this world, and express 
themselves in a language that is not entirely different from that of ordinary life. The con- 
sequence is, that every character in this book possesses a distinct individuality, which will be 
remembered long by the reader ; and the most important incidents of the plot, which is 
of much interest, happen naturally and quietly. Through the whole volume the author shows 
a quiet humor and honest love of fun which give a genial glow to his chapters, and establish 
the pleasantest relations between him and his readers.' " — New York Tribune. 

LEIGHTON COURT. A Country- House Story. 1 vol. i6mo., 200 

pages. $1.50. 

" This is a charming story. . . . The style is wonderfully fresh and vigorous; the plot is 
ingenious and interesting; and the characters are drawn with a sharpness of outline and a 
dramatic discrimination that shows the hand of a master ; and the landscape-painting is 
as fine as only Mr. Kingsley could have made'it." — Boston Advertiser. 

THE HILLYARS AND THE BURTONS. A Story of Two 
Families. 1 vol. i2mo., 428 pages. $1.75. 

SILCOTE OF SILCOTES, 1 vol. 8vo., 144 pages. Paper, 75 

cents. 



FARMING FOR BOYS: What they have done, and what Others 
may do in the Cultivation of Farm and Garden; how to Begin 
how to Proceed, and what to Aim at. By the author of " Ten 
Acres Enough." Illustrated. 1 vol. Square i6mo., 390 pages. 

$1.50. 



LOVELL, ADAM, WESSON & CO. 



SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS A YEAR. A Wife's Effort at Living 
under High Prices. I vol. 1 6 mo., 200 pages. Cloth, Gilt Edges, 
j 5 cents. 

" This is the story of a wife, showing how, by economy and taste, the family lived comfort- 
ably on six hundred dollars a year. It is an entertaining volume, and full of good sense." — 
Boston Recorder. 

" This is a book that will save not only many dollars a year, but in some cases many hun- 
dreds, by the thrifty hints it throws out." — Philadelphia Ledger. 

"It combines the merits of a novel with those of a cook-book." — Boston Transcript* 



A LOVER'S DIARY. By Alice Cary. With Illustrations by Hen- 
nessy and others. 1 vol. i6mo., 250 pages. Full Gilt, Cloth, 

$1.50. 

" For the pure loveliness of love, for the sweetly potent expression of its real character, for 
the fortifying of the heart against all sensuousness and evil heats and vicious warping of the 
nature, profaning the sacred name of love, we find Miss Caiy's poem incomparable. We 
are glad to know that it will have many thousand readers." — Brooklyn Union. 



LAKE CHAMPLAIN LIBRARY OF NOVELS 



1. THE MEMBER FOR PARIS. By Grenville Murray, 7$ 

2. THE QUEEN OF THE REGIMENT. By Katharine 

King, 7 5 

3. THE MAROUIS DE VILLEMER. By George Sand, 75 

4. CESARINE" DIETRICH. By George Sand, 75 

5. A ROLLING STONE. Bv George Sand 50 

6. HANDSOME LAWRENCE. By Geo. Sand, 50 

7. LOVE AND VALOR. By Tom Hood, 75 

8. THE STORY OF SIBYLLE. By Octave Feuillet,. . .7$ 

9. FOUL PLAY. Bv Charles Reade, 50 

10. READY MONEY'MORTIBOY. : 75 

11. MY LITTLE GIRL. By Author of "Ready Money 

Mortiboy," .7s 

12. PENRUDDOCKE. By Hamilton Aide, .75 

13. YOU NG BROWN. By Grenville Murray, 75 

14. A NINE DAYS' WONDER. By Hamilton Aide, 75 

15. SILCOTE OF SILCOTES. By Henry Kingsley, 75 

LOVELL, ADAM, WESSONS CO., Publishers. 

7 8"*? -'0' -5 ' 7SA Broadway, New York, 






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